As I completed the SoundOut Student Voice Curriculum I compiled a list of basic knowledge about the education system students need to have in order to be effective school change agents. This is based on my experience working with hundreds of students in schools across the U.S., as well as consulting with teachers from a wide range of schools who are doing this work everyday.
An Overview of Public Schools
- Intro to the School System
- Reflecting on Your Education
Student Voice 101
- Student Rights
- Intro to Meaningful Student Involvement
- Advocating for Students
Student/Adult Partnerships
- Working with Adults Allies
- Adults as Roadblocks
- Action Research for School Change and Student Evaluations of School
Learning about Learning
- Which 3 Rs today: Reading, Writing and Arithmetic or Relevance, Rigor and Relationships?
- Understanding Basic Curriculum
- Assessing School Performance
Learning Outside of School
- Project-based learning, service learning and more
- When Homework Matters
- Out-of-School Learning
- Homeschooling, Unschooling and Taking Control of Your Learning
- Summertime Doesn’t Suck
The Politics of Schools
- What Lies Behind, Underneath and Within Education and Reform
- Standardized Learning and Testing
- What Happens After the Test?
- The Future of Schools
Let me know what you think, what’s missing, and what I should take out. Thanks!
Written by Adam Fletcher, this article was originally posted to http://commonaction.blogspot.com. Learn more at adamfletcher.net!
Fletcher Engagement Services 
Were you thinking about including some history of public schools?
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Yeah, I’d add something at the very beginning in the Intro section I think. Sylvia, have you ever heard of/read John Taylor Gatto? In 1990 he was a 25-year veteran teacher in NY who was awarded the state’s teacher of the year award. For his acceptance speech he gets up and gives this damning indictment of public schools, talking about how his job as a teacher was to teach confusion, class position, indifference, emotional dependency, intellectual dependency, provisional self-esteem and that “one can’t hide”. He turns all this into his best-known work, “Dumbing US So, “guy with creds” rips up system.In 2001 he puts out a book called “The Underground History of American Education” where he continues the tear-apart. I would include some of that info in the intro. You can find out more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Underground_History_Of_American_Education
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