Learning: What Counts and Who Decides?

Educators, educational leaders, and policymakers continue to develop academic interventions for secondary school students who experience ongoing struggles. This approach is understandable given the neoliberal educational goal to support students’ becoming contributing members of society. However, time spent responding to symptoms (i.e., students failing courses) merely maintains the status quo. It negates the exploration of a deeper cause of these struggles. This organizational improvement plan (OIP) explores and initiates a change to respond to a cause of these challenges: lack of student voice in learning environments resulting in diminished student achievement and limited awareness of postsecondary pathway possibilities. Although mentioned in education policy and visionary statements, the application of student voice is inconsistent, limited, and often performative as the domination of normalized adult voice prevails. Two-Eyed Seeing and the ethic of the best interest of the student will support the elevation of student voice in reimagining their formal learning experiences. It will further the interrogation and expansion of student demonstration of their learning, privileging student-driven approaches over teacher-centered ones. Transformative and followership leadership approaches situate all participants as learners, collaboratively exploring, identifying, and disrupting assumptions about student learning and teaching practices while co-designing changes that evolve from current reality. This is realized through a discovery-based inquiry cycle, an iterative change model, and a monitoring framework that tracks formative and summative indicators of progress and success. This OIP prioritizes including student voice, situating students as drivers of their learning experience, and reimagining adults’ role in making a difference for a child