Developing Student Advocates
Students demonstrate the ability to speak/write/think about real-world problems.
Introduction
The world is becoming smaller and more connected through technology, and people are regularly interacting with one another. Despite our interconnectedness, people are struggling with the task of effectively working together and solving problems based on differences and misunderstandings. If we look at the current state of our nation and the world, several issues stem from people's inability to problem solve. As future leaders of our country, it is imperative that my students have the skills they need to be active members of society. One of those crucial skills is the ability to problem solve.
For many of my students, they are learning what it means to play, be nice, and be a friend. Every year, throughout the year, my five- and six-year-olds come with problems that occurred at recess. Many of the issues stem from misunderstanding, miscommunication, and physical aggression. While my co-teacher and I have encouraged our students to seek assistance from the recess advisors to help with mediation and have also modeled what to do when a peer is mean, these problems continue because my students do not have the skills or experience to problem solve on their own. Thus, it is essential to support my students as they develop the skills they need to be advocates for themselves and their peers.
As a teacher, it is my goal to empower them to become specialists in problem-solving. However, to do this, it is essential that I share my leadership and not view my students as “recipients” (Fletcher, A., 2011, p.1). As Kiran Sethi (Sethi, K., 20010) shared, it is powerful when students go “from ‘teacher told me,’ to ‘I am doing it.’ [Which] [is] the ‘I Can’ mind-shift” (Sethi, K., 2010).
The referral data below is from the school counselors. The dark blue bar represents the number of incidents, or referrals, for kindergarten students this year. When discussing the referral graph with the counselors, we agreed that majority of referrals stem from our students’ lack of experience with using their voices to solve problems and advocate for themselves and thus referrals are written up.
Pictured Above: Referral data from SY2017-2018
The data support the notion that students require support in building their understanding of how to effectively advocate for themselves. However, to be cognizant of not perpetuating a “By and With” classroom, which disengages students from actively participating, I cannot “conceive [the] activities, design them, institute them, and evaluate them afterwards” (Fletcher, A. & Vavrus, J., 2006, p.3). Thus, I “intentionally work[ed] with [students] in every part of the project creation, implementation, and assessment cycle” (Fletcher, A. & Vavrus, J., 2006, p.3).
Surveying the class
To engage my students in the creation process and to ensure that I listened students’ voices (Fletcher, A. & Vavrus, J., 2006) and their needs, I surveyed to collect new quantitative data to see if my students feel that conflicts are an issue. The survey I created based on the Community Needs Survey by The Intersection (2013). By doing a study, “students [saw] that their input [was] taken seriously and informing change, [so] they [were] more likely to commit their efforts” (Fox, K. et al., 2013). The survey was conducted whole group and students were prompted to answer eight questions by filling in happy faces which stand for “I agree” or, sad faces which stand for “I disagree.” Student surveys were collected and reviewed to create better-informed focus group questions that are based on student answers, validating student voice (Fletcher, A. & Vavrus, J., 2006).
During the survey, all students were engaged through their coloring. However, it was difficult to gauge whether or not they fully understood the questions or were answering truthfully since the survey did not allow us to discuss their answers at the time. The questions and the students' responses are as follows:
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Pictured Above: Survey data results from the entire class.
Pictured Above: Student survey sample
I was not surprised that the lowest percentage of 45% came from question three which was “If there’s a problem between my friends and me, I know how they feel.” During conflicts, my students have difficulty understanding their peers’ perspective. They do not have enough experience with dealing with others emotions and practicing empathy. Thus, the quantitative data affirmed the need for the slide in my advocacy visual that displayed different emotions. The visual reference of various emotions will support students’ development of empathy as they discuss problems with their peers. Students can refer to the visual to explain to their peer how they felt during the problem and why. Furthermore, the visual aid will support students understanding of their peers’ feeling because once the problem has passed, some of them are unable to remember the impact the conflict had on their peers just by a verbal explanation. By seeing the emotions via the visual, students can associate the verbal explanation to an expression which will help them relive the moment and better understand their peers’ perspective. The percentage also validated my belief that my students need support in building their communication and problem-solving skills. The second lowest percentage of 54% came from the question “I can come up with my own solutions.” When I look at the lowest percentages, it is clear that my students struggle with problem solving and communication and self-belief. Thus, as they continue to develop their problem-solving skills, I will continue to support them. By involving students in the process, I’m furthering their development of “problem-solving, communication, and self-belief” (Fox, K. et al., 2013) skills as they better understand the necessary steps they need to take.
Focus Groups
As the surveys were done during whole group, they were not an accurate representation of students’ understanding since students are still building their test-taking skills (e.g., listening and sitting for extended periods of time, following directions, etc.). Therefore, it was important that I organize focus groups to address any possible misconceptions about the questions and answers. “Focus groups help people learn more about group or community opinions and needs… [However] focus groups can get closer to what people are really thinking, even though their responses may be harder – or impossible – to score on a scale” (University of Kansas, Work Group for Community Health and Development, 2010). Thus, a focus group will be beneficial because I will be able “to supplement the knowledge [I] can gain from [their] written surveys” (University of Kansas, Work Group for Community Health and Development, 2010) with the knowledge I can gain by “[asking] questions that can’t easily be asked or answered on [the] written survey” (University of Kansas, Work Group for Community Health and Development, 2010). Additionally, the focus groups were an effective way to continue to build my relationships with my students and between students as they were able to listen and learn from the teacher and each other. By participating in the focus groups, students also had the opportunity to practice advocating for themselves because they had space where they could comfortably share their thoughts and opinions.
I conducted focus groups over the course of a week. During the session, a tool I used with each group was a visual inspired by the “Soccer Solutions Book” activity created by the Province of British Columbia's Performance Standards (Province of British Columbia, Education, n.d.). In the “Soccer Solutions Book” (Province of British Columbia, Education, n.d.) activity, a class that “frequently had difficulty following rules and guidelines on the playground” (Province of British Columbia, Education, n.d.) creates a book from their drawings that help them reflect on problems they're having on the playground. Then, the teacher guides students through the thought process of identifying problems and producing solutions. Instead of having my students draw their problems, Imy visual presents students with common playground problems that they can identify to encourage discussion. When I craeted the visual, I was also cognizant of my students' ability to identify emotions and empathize. I would classify the majority of my students as egocentric, so I believe it is crucial to expose them to how the others involved might feel. So, it was imperative to include a slide that displayed a range of emotions, so students could discuss, identify, and associate emotions that might come up during a predicament. A slide on emotions was important because it supports their development of empathy and their understanding that they are not the only ones affected by the problem.
Pictured Above: Teacher created advocacy visual
During the focus groups, it was also imperative to ask participants if “there [were] other recommendations that [they] [had], or suggestions, [they] would like to make” (University of Kansas, Work Group for Community Health and Development, 2010) to the advocacy visual. This question was important because it encouraged student engagement and voice, included students in the design process of the visual we would use in the classroom, and supported their understanding that they have “the authority to make a difference” (Fletcher, A. & Vavrus, J., 2006). Although this question was simple, it is important because it demonstrates that everyone is “responsible for what happens throughout our [classroom] communit[y]” (Fletcher, A. & Vavrus, J., 2006, p.5). As a group, we talked about adding a slide to the visual to remind students that they have the ability to advocate for themselves. To make it relevant to their lives, we decided to use superheroes as a symbol of being an advocate because superheroes stand up for themselves and their beliefs.
Pictured Above: the students and I collaborated to create additional slides that reminded them to advocate for themselves and their beliefs.
The focus groups were comprised of three students. Students were chosen as “a representative sample of those whose opinions [I’m] concerned about” (University of Kansas, Work Group for Community Health and Development, 2010). Through the focus groups, I was able to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how my students felt through their “nonverbal communications and group interactions” (University of Kansas, Work Group for Community Health and Development, 2010). What was interesting was the group interactions observed during one of the focus group questions which was “I feel like my classmates’ care about me.” The question was a repeated question from the survey. However, I asked it again so I could “get [a] closer [understanding] [of] what [students] [were] really thinking and feeling” (University of Kansas, Work Group for Community Health and Development, 2010). While 73% of the class said that their classmates care about them, it was interesting to see the group dynamics since one of the participants is often involved in problems with his peers. Due to his difficulty with his peers, the group interactions were tense during this question because some of the students vocalized that this student did not care about them. For example, a student said, “He doesn’t care about me because he always cuts in front of me!” The student’s statement caused an immediate reaction from the accused student, and he defended himself through arguing and also through nonverbal communication, scowling. Although this happened, I appreciated this moment because I was able to use it as a learning experience for the focus group. When this incident occurred, I paused our group so we could look at the advocacy visual. We first spent some time on the “Identifying and Understanding Emotions” slide, and I had students share what emotion they felt when the other student was cutting in line or engaging in other conflicts with them. We worked on including those emotions in their responses. For example, a student shared, “He doesn’t care about me because he always cuts in front of me and that makes me angry and sad.” As we looked at the emotion visually, I asked the other student if he thought those were good feelings or bad feelings. He said that they were bad feelings and when asked if he thought others like to feel this way he said, “no.” To continue the reflection process, I encouraged him to continue to think about how he felt when his peers shared that they felt those “bad” feelings when they had conflicts with him. He shared, “I feel bad because I didn’t know I made them feel like that.”
During the debrief, his peers’ nonverbal communication showed their apprehensiveness towards his answer as they uneasily shifted in their seats, unsure if his answers were sincere. The ability to identify their nonverbal cues prompted us into a further discussion of what they thought about the student’s answers and how they felt. During this process, it was encouraging to see how students were trying to understand their peer's feelings and practice positively using their voice. My students required a lot of prompts and guidance, and it reminded me of how essential it is to support the development of youth voice by providing “adult wisdom [and] experience” (Fletcher, A. & Vavrus, J., 2006, p.3). Without my support, my students would have struggled to go through the advocacy process since they are still developing these skills.
Student Reflection
To ensure that the cycle of youth engagement is honored, students need time for reflection. “Reflection may be the most important ongoing step to engaging children and youth” (Fletcher, A. & Vavrus, J., 2006). To encourage student reflection on how they advocated for themselves during conflicts, I have students draw. Similar to retelling, drawings show the events of the conflict and the outcome. As seen in the reflection to the left, my student drew the problem that happened, how it started, and how they felt when it happened.
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Due to my student's age, simply drawing what has happened isn’t enough to garner a reflection that will foster continued advocacy and engagement. My young students require more guidance to thoroughly reflect on what they did and if they successfully advocated for themselves by using their problem-solving skills, or if there are areas that need more practice like listening to the other party’s feelings, and what they can do to improve. Thus, I partner with students during the reflection, so the “lessons [will] be incorporated into the next listening activity, to support a cyclical approach to Youth Engagement” (Fletcher, A., 2010). By providing students with clear steps on how to handle a problem or a situation that they feel is unfair, students mind-shift will begin to be more of an “I can” (Sethi, K., 2010) attitude rather than an “I can’t” or “I don’t know how.”
Student Explanation on Advocacy
Pictured Above: Student's reflection after an incident occurred at recess with a peer.
Conclusion
With the new data collected from the survey and focus groups, I was able to refine the advocacy visual shared so that it reflects my student’s voices and needs. The advocacy visual will continue to be a tool that I use to empower students to be advocates by providing them with the strategies they need to utilize their voice, identify problems, empathize with other parties involved, and collaboratively come up with solutions, so both parties are happy. Through continuous practice with the advocacy visual and the reflection process, my students will have space and opportunities to speak, draw, and think about how they are developing their skills to combat and navigate the real-world dilemmas like effectively problem solving.
REFERENCES
Fletcher, A. (2010). Cycle of youth voice. Retrieved from https://freechild.org/cycle-of-youth-voice/
Fletcher, A. & Vavrus, J. (2006). The guide to social change led by and with young people. CommonAction. Retrieved from https://adamfletcher.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/SocialChangeGuide.pdf
Fletcher, A. (2011). New roles for young people throughout society. Retrieved from http://treasure.over-blog.com/2015/12/new-roles-for-young-people-throughout-society.html
Province of British Columbia, Education. (n.d.). BC performance standards: Social responsibility: A framework: Grades K to 3. Retrieved from http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/perf_stands/skto3.pdf
Sethi, K. (2010, January). Kiran Sethi: Kids, take charge [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/kiran_bir_sethi_teaches_kids_to_take_charge.html