Last year, I wrote about Pedagogy of Voice, as described in Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation. This weekend I am rereading the Pedagogy of Voice chapter: Redefine “Success” and striving to go deeper into the content. In this post, I want to share some of the passages that are standing out the most, and why.
The following passage speaks to what Dr. Gholdy Muhammad calls the Genius that lays within each of our students. Every human in our schools brings with them rich experiences and strengths. When we intentionally design a pedagogy that builds relationship and trust and prioritizes student voice, students feel seen and heard. As a result, the community is more diverse and can engage in deeper conversation, and members of the community feel a strong sense of belonging. We need a sense of belonging to learn, and to feel our full humanity.
“If we believe that every student is more than a number-is in fact a complex, layered human being with endless potential, brilliance, and access to community cultural wealth-we can choose a pedagogy of voice that transforms everything from our classrooms to our adult cultures to our policies. Such a pedagogy says, ‘I see you. I believe in you. You are safe to grow and thrive here. I want to hear your voice.’” – Safir and Dugan
The passage also highlights the importance of feedback. When I listen to feedback, reflect on how to integrate the feedback into practice, and acknowledge when I am acting on the feedback, I empower the person who gave me the feedback. My practice improves and they see the impact of their suggestion/s. They have agency, the topic of the second passage:
“Our equity efforts truly begin when we redefine success as the cultivation of student agency and realign our measures of success to this goal….Agency is the idea that people have the capacity to take action….It emerges in a learning space where power is distributed, knowledge is democratized, diverse perspectives are welcomed, and children are intellectually and emotionally nourished.” – Safir and Dugan
I want to pause for a moment and reflect on: “power is distributed and children are intellectually and emotionally nourished.”
This is key to education! This is why the emphasis is on both self-reflection/self-work and on changing systems and reimagining the way we do school.
If the goal is to empower, especially our formerly marginalized students, we need to expand the data we use for continuous improvement. We need to use Street Data. We need to center student input and take on the student perspective, we focus on understanding what they are thinking. This is why the work of focus students is so imperative, why we must pay attention to the “micro-interactions that characterize a student’s passage through the school day…. [to get] a ground-level view of the ways in which children are included, excluded, marginalized, or just plain invisible in their learning environments” (Safir and Dugan). When teachers seek and make public our acting on student feedback, we make the wise feedback we give to students more impactful (see p. 117 in Street Data for more information).
Street Data describes four domains of Agency, which I described in A Framework for Developing Agency. The first domain, Identity, reminds us that in order to feel agency, a student needs to know that their “ways of being, learning, and knowing the world” are valued and full of potential. Rather than what Bettina Love defines as spirit murdering where schools deny “inclusion, protection, safety, nurturance, and acceptance because…structures of racism” (Bettina Love in Street Data), we focus on honoring and guiding each unique individual. Love’s is a strong statement that demands our attention and action. When I am reminded of Love’s work as I reread this chapter, my sense of urgency grows.
When we learn from our students, lessons and units can be designed “from the micro-pedagogies of relationship, belonging, inquiry, feedback, discussion, field research, and taking action…. [This is] the practice of freedom” (-Safir and Dugan).
“Access to a pedagogy of voice and agency can change a student’s life trajectory.”
-Safir and Dugan
Resource:
Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation, Safir and Dugan
Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally Responsive and Historically Responsive Literacy, Gholdy Muhammad
We Want to Do More Than Survive, Bettina Love