You know there is a problem with Student Agency don’t you? If your school does Student Agency you have a problem. It may sound like you are at the cutting edge of progressive pedagogy. You may well be up there with Studio Five or High School High or Templestowe College. It sounds like the kind of thing an International Baccalaureate school would do. Student Agency – It looks great on a website, sounds sophisticated to say, it is ‘dope’ and ‘woke’ all at the same time. And yet, it has a dirty little secret.
Student Agency is not a thing.
Seriously.
Student Agency should be all things to all people, but is nothing to everyone and everything to no one.
Terms like ‘happiness’ and ‘democracy’ and ‘work-life balance’ all mean something to someone but are so context specific that you find yourself nodding politely and smiling with no idea what the person is actually talking about. Yet it feels like you should.
It’s the same with Student Agency. It is not a thing. We can’t pick the rules of the language game it fits into. And that’s why after 20 years of trying map out its shape, I’ve given up on Student Agency.
Well – almost. The actual problem with Student Agency, is that it is not a thing in modern educational philosophy. There is just no place for it. When it comes to Student Agency, the meta narrative around the purpose for schools is at odds with those in the practice of schooling.
Over the last few decades, discourse around the purpose of schooling has changed. We’ve transmogrified from ‘schools produce workers’ to ‘schools produce data’. By ‘data’ I mean economic activity. It is hardly satisfying , but in this age of praxis – theory in action, some theories eat culture for breakfast.
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Currently, I serve in a very small, very old (by Australian standards) school community. We’ve been around since 1875. Back then, there was no mains water, no gas to heat the rooms and horses were banned from the oval. The rough draughty bluestone building afforded hope and certainty. We still have no mains water or gas. Horses are still banned from the oval and the same little old building is at the heart of our learning community.
We talk about giving children the power to shape their world. I’m not sure, but it ought to be really different to Student Agency. We call it learner agency. Have you heard of the saying ‘the proof is in the pudding?’ I’ve got no idea how the proof got in there – or if it is an ingredient? What I do know – is that a ‘pudding’ is the product of a process. That process is the interaction of ingredients and skillful action over time with specific tools in a specialised place.
It is the same with leaner agency. When we see kids tuned into the possibilities in their environment and they take action – then we are seeing learner agency.
Case in point- Our water tanks were running low. Fast forward a few months and the they are on stage at a national student led conference sharing an invented toilet that could be used in Nepal after a landslide.
When asked what they didn’t want to go back to after returning to school after COVID-19 lock down, they said ‘too much time sitting on the floor’. So it was changed!
They tuned into two key structures of school life that they had done quite well without – timetables and grade levels. So on Fridays when they came back – we ditched timetables and grade levels for our senior students.
So how does this relate to Firestarters? Well, you shall have to wait till the next installment!