Dr. Steve Bailey was co-founder of Shalhevet High School (Los Angeles) and a researcher, author and consultant in Jewish education, specializing in moral education and curriculum projects. He is a professional development workshop presenter and Co-Director of Quality Education by Design, www.QEDworkshops.com.
Steve Bailey describes how empowerment, one of the core principles in the school he helped to found, finds expression in daily student life and impacts on students.
Although it is politically correct to say that students have a “say” in their school experience, the idea of genuine “student empowerment” in Jewish day schools is often an intimidating concept. In most traditional day schools, independent student power to modify, ratify, innovate or protest against school or classroom policies is quite limited, in reality.
Understandably, challenge to administrative or teacher authority is considered threatening in schools in which obedience and control are primary values. After all, administrators are responsible to parents, their Boards and their benefactors, for showing academic achievement and success in the schools. Teachers are responsible to control the behavior and academic accomplishment in their classrooms. The idea of giving up some administrative or classroom “powers” to students, is threatening to “law and order.”
Research in the area of student empowerment, however, tells a different story. In a comparative analysis of student empowerment programs, McQuillan (2005) found the following:
Denied formal power in the classroom and school at large, students frequently disengage from learning and reject what schools offer, often to their detriment (Cook-Sather, 2002; Hemmings, 2001; Kohl, 1994; Willis, 1977, 2003). When it is assumed that adults should tell students what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and whether they did it right; when these assumptions pervade the formal curriculum and extracurricular activities; and when one sees no way to counter such unilateral actions, in the words of Seymour Sarason (1990), “it takes no particular wisdom to suggest one would rather be elsewhere” (p. 83). Yet, in a study of the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), a national secondary school reform initiative, Donna Muncey and I (1996) found that “where student participation was encouraged and nurtured, classroom and school-wide changes were more likely to be sustained and to deepen [and] in those schools students often became proponents of change” (p. 155). Cook-Sather (2002) described much the same situation: When schools listen, “students not only feel more engaged but are also inclined to take more responsibility for their education because it is no longer something being done to them but rather something they do. (p. 10)
The thematic thread running through these findings is that empowering students is not detrimental to school functioning, but the opposite – that student empowerment actually increases motivation and compliance. Administrative fears of student “control” and teachers’ fears of student manipulation are not supported by the data. The positive effect of student empowerment on motivation, mutual trust and respect is what we found in the Modern Orthodox Shalhevet High School in Los Angeles, designed as a “Just Community” (Kehillat Tzedek), which integrates student empowerment into the basic structure of the school.
In Shalhevet, student empowerment is evident in four areas: classroom policies, student evaluation of their classes, school-wide rules and policies, and interpersonal relationships among students, teachers and administrators. The following sketches of the four areas of student empowerment describe the role of students and the impact of their empowerment both on their own educational experience and on the school.
Classroom policies
Typically, teachers will present their expectations for class requirements to their students, either formally or informally. They will tell students what they expect from them in terms of homework, class-work, projects and tests. They may also have policies about cheating, disruptions, lateness or absences. Students listen – perhaps grumble – make some notes and then the class goes on. The teacher sets the rules and students are expected to follow them. Moreover, there certainly is no discussion of what students may expect from their teacher. Students are essentially ignored or marginalized, since the teacher is the sole classroom authority.
However, there is another model of presenting classroom policies, which takes students and the value of student empowerment more seriously. In this model, the teachers present to students, in writing, the proposed policies of the classroom and ask for student feedback on each, checking that students understand the rationale behind the rules and that all expectations, including consequences of violating rules, are clear and fair. After discussion, policies are modified if necessary, and students ratify their willingness to comply with the policies. The teacher also presents to students what they may expect from him or her in regard to returning tests in a timely fashion, methods of grading and opportunities to meet and discuss personal issues affecting the student’s class functioning. This model respects students as partners in their educational experience, gives each a voice and focuses on the fairness of mutual responsibilities in a classroom. Not only do students feel empowered and respected as “people” but also they are committed to comply with policies they themselves ratified as reasonable and fair. It’s a win-win situation and sets up a healthy, open relationship between teacher and student for the rest of the year, with no compromise of academic responsibility.
Course evaluations
Consider this scenario: Dena confides in her parents that one of her teachers is unfair, a poor instructor, authoritarian and borderline incompetent in his subject area. She stresses that she is not the only one who thinks this – the majority of the class is unhappy. Predictably, her concerned parents tell her to speak with the principal. Dena doesn’t want to make trouble, but gathers enough courage to present her concerns to the principal, who, equally predictably, assures her that he “will look into it.” After many weeks, nothing has changed. Dena and her fellow students remain frustrated and unmotivated, parents feel helpless and the principal has averted a confrontation with his faculty. This is a “lose-lose” scenario, where the status quo produces unmotivated students, an idle principal and a teacher who continues to be an ineffective educator.
An alternative approach empowers students to have a voice that can effectively evoke a real change in their education. At the end of each semester, an administrator disburses (and collects) a course-evaluation form for students to complete, anonymously. It is not focused on the teacher, per se, but on the effectiveness of the course. Students have to indicate, on a 5-point scale (low to high), areas such as effectiveness of teaching methods, fairness of classroom policies, personal motivation and interest in the subject as presented, satisfaction with material presented, etc. One can see that the overall pattern of poor teaching, authoritarian, unfair methods and lack of motivation will be evident in the evaluation and point to significant problems in an objective, cumulative way, without directly attacking a teacher. The principal now has data to address, professionally, concerns of the class to his teacher, and students have been given the opportunity to have their voice heard and, hopefully, to effectively change their own educational experience.
Fairness Committee
Part of the Just Community structure that assures student empowerment is a Fairness Committee. This unique committee is comprised of elected, representative students in each high school year, a teacher and an administrator. Using a formal written process, complaints from both teachers and students of alleged unfair treatment may be submitted for consideration and recommendations for resolution. Without going into the details, this system allows students a way to confront perceived unfair treatment (sometimes on issues of discipline, punishments, favoritism, teacher or class violations of agreed upon classroom policies, etc.) in a fair and respectful way. Often issues are resolved by informal mediation, but if a hearing is granted, a fair judgment is reached. Such a powerful, unique opportunity for students to be heard and to resolve problems through peer review, is a constructive, potent expression of student empowerment. Although teachers are initially suspicious of such student empowerment, the reality is that students do not abuse this privilege when they are perceived as responsible and mature by faculty and administration. In reality, not many cases reach a hearing, either because they were mediated or because the simple existence of such a committee serves as a deterrent to both students and teachers against acting unjustly towards each other.
Town meeting
During this weekly, full-school assembly, issues of school-wide policy may be discussed, debated, proposed, changed or eliminated. Written, structured proposals are formulated by students, teachers or administrators and presented to the group for open debate, discussion and ultimate vote (with some agreed upon topic limitations, such as safety rules, pedagogy and religious policies, which are not subject to majority vote, although debate is allowed). National and international issues may also be presented as well as school philosophy issues. Because teachers, administrators and students are all empowered to express themselves, this assembly is one of the most effective articulations of student empowerment and the component of the Just Community structure most highly valued by the entire school community.
Student reactions
Before reviewing some of the data on students’ reactions to being empowered as experienced in the Just Community model, there is a caveat to student empowerment that must be addressed. The majority population of voters in any school is the student body. If a school is going to empower its students to have a democratic voice and a significant, concrete impact on school change, the school atmosphere must be one of mutual respect and support. In setting up a Just Community, much time and effort is given to orient the school community to the democratic values of the model, so that there is mutual trust and cooperation rather than an “us” versus “them” mentality. If administrators and/or teachers are seen as unfairly authoritarian, students are going to want to assert their rebellion rather than being constructive partners. In such a scenario, there develops a “lose-lose” situation. Schools that wish to empower students but do not use the Just Community model can slowly develop trust and mutual responsibility in their school by initiating one or two of the student empowerment strategies described above and assess the degree of responsibility shown by students and staff.
How do students react to “student empowerment”? In a survey conducted four years after the start of Shalhevet’s Just Community model, students in grades 9-12 were presented with questions they had to rank on a scale from 1-5, where 5 was “strongly agree” and 1 was “strongly disagree.” Excerpting fifteen questions (out of 45 on the entire survey) on the value of classroom policies, course evaluations, Fairness Committee and Town Hall – all explicitly involving student empowerment – the average across all grades was 4.3, with “Town Hall” receiving the highest rating (4.7) and “course evaluations” (3.9), the lowest of the averages. Any score above a “3” indicated a positive response on the scale. One can infer from the students’ assessments that they would tend to agree with the benefits of student empowerment described in this article.
Final thoughts
In his summary thoughts on student empowerment research and case studies, McQuillan noted the overall, positive effect of student empowerment on the entire student community:
First, while the challenge is considerable, there is a synergy to the empowerment process. The academic, political, and social dimensions of student empowerment can be mutually reinforcing. Having students exercise a voice in school matters may enhance academic performance, enrich students’ understanding of democratic citizenship and make schools more responsive institutions. The connections can be systemic, intertwining and building momentum in mutually reinforcing ways.
However, he also warned that the notion of student empowerment faces opposition from administrators and teachers, as well as students and parents:
…efforts to promote student empowerment will probably generate disequilibrium, a sense of unease or a feeling that things are not quite as they should be (Wheatley, 1999). From a cultural perspective, disequilibrium seems unavoidable given that student empowerment contradicts what many students, teachers, administrators, and parents believe students and schools should do. Students seldom have real power in schools; to accord them power risks abuse or misuse and can generate unease and uncertainty…
Indeed, student empowerment is difficult to enact because doing so requires not only altering traditional structures and practices but changing beliefs and values as well, in particular how we conceptualize the most fundamental element of our educational system: students.
True, school administrators and teachers will have to be courageous and visionary to “alter traditional structures and practices,” but the prospect of a “win-win” situation in our Jewish Day schools outweighs the risks.
References
McQuillan, P. J. (2005). Possibilities and pitfalls: A comparative analysis of student empowerment. American Educational Research Journal 42(4), pp. 639–670.