Students & Change

The latest literature on change suggests that teacher’s attitude and commitment are essential for the success of any reform or innovation. When teachers see the meaning and benefit in change, they will participate in its implementation more actively. Typically, any change is aimed at the betterment of students’ experiences, and, strangely, students’ attitude and commitment to change are rarely taken into the consideration. During the interviews for my research on 12-year education reform, one of the participants informed that, although change is supposed to be beneficial for students, paradoxically, students were treated as objects of the reform or as, they described themselves, ‘guinea pigs’. In this blog I will reflect on the question: What is the benefit of listening to students’ opinion?

Prominent author, Fullan (1999) argues that, even though teachers may resist change, they should be listened to, as resisters might have some valuable ideas to offer.  Students also can reject new ideas that come from teacher. Therefore, following Fullan’s line of the argument, Levin (2000) argues that commitment and participation of students should not be discarded on the following reasons.

First of all, students can provide teachers, principals and policy-makers with valuable information on how school processes could be improved. Rudduck et al. (1996) suggests that any initiatives should start with finding out the factors that negatively impact student engagement and motivation or, vice versa, issues that interest them the most. Students' feedback can be used to monitor the progress of any reform. For instance, one of the students in my research pointed out that 12-year education reform is ‘meaningless’ and ‘demotivating’. Student participants provided a sufficient number of reasons to support their opinion.  According to the mentioned authors, students’ answers can be a valuable source of rich data.

Secondly, students' perceptions have a direct influence on their parents' views and even decisions. Otherwise, as it became evident during my interviews, they can become barriers on the way to change. For instance, at school where I conducted my research, vice principal informed, that some parents preferred to transfer their children to a normal 11-year program class, because they did not fully understand the purpose of the reform. As a result they were just 11 students left in the class.

To sum up, students’ opinion and feedback can become a powerful tool that can help to increase their commitment, improve school’s processes and spread ideas to the broader community. As this topic was not widely researched, it can be assumed that there could be other advantages, as well as disadvantages of students’ involvement.

Reference

Fullan, M. (1999). Change forces: The sequel. Psychology Press.

Levin, B. (2000). Putting students at the centre in education reform. Journal of Educational Change, 1(2), 155-172.

Rudduck, J., Chaplain, R. & Wallace, G. (eds) (1996). School Improvement: What Can

Pupils Tell Us? London: David Fulton.