Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Student Voice 101 - Student Voice

Student Voice:


Student Voice 101



We are Student Voice. I am student voice. YOU are student voice.


Student voice is “a movement for students, by students, connecting and organizing America’s most underrepresented population – the students. We aim not to change a culture that ignores student voice, but rather create a culture that embraces it.”
Our website, stuvoice.org is a platform for students to share their thoughts and be heard. We additionally connect through twitter using #stuvoice chats every Monday on various topics relating to students in education, politics and other things. As noted on the site, “Students from all different socioeconomic, geographic, and racial backgrounds connect through Student Voice both virtually and face-to-face. These relationships have empowered students to devise youth councils and organize education 


Feb. 11 Chat – Structured Schooling

Over the past few months, #StuVoice Twitter chats have often centered on efforts to give students and schools more autonomy. While this is not wrong, it neglects the other side of this debate. In an effort to promote both sides of this issue, our chat for next week will be: “How can structure improve education?”
Things to think about before this chat:
Dr. Diane Hamilton believes stronger curriculum guidelines benefit students.
Colin Powell gives a great TED talk in support of structured schooling.
Consider your own life. How has the structure of you education influenced who you are today?
Finally, if you believe structured curriculum can do nothing to improve education, be sure to let us know! We aim to promote an atmosphere of learning. We hope every participant can benefit from this chat.
Tweet at you soon!


Christian Isaac- Good Riddance: 3 Small Steps for Mankind

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education” ~ Albert Einstein
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Education is a simple virtue. Teachers teach, and we students learn. That is the envisioned goal of education, specifically public education; to give knowledge to individuals; and by this, give them power. Education’s mission in its existence is to enrich our minds, give us the steps necessary for both extrinsic and intrinsic advancement, and to give us the tools we need to complete the tasks of life that we want to complete.
This contrasts the reality of public school, however. In my school, whose walls enclose a roaring symphony of motivation towards college, teachers hand me data and processes, then expect me to memorize them so that I can then repeat the data and processes for a test – the same way a retail manager instructs a clerk to use a cash register. I learn nothing. In my school, who boasts success behind the ramparts of a mistaken agenda, I am taught that to be a person who has a life that matters in society, I have to absorb all the words and numbers spat on me by my classes to punch grades into a grade book, and go on to college, then to a vain career whose