Student Voice has a number of features, but can be characterized as giving students the ability to influence their own educational environments to include policies, curriculum, pedagogy, programs, and more. This occurs when student voices—that is to say, their perspectives—are sought out, listened to, and implemented. Yet, student “voice” is a bit of a misnomer, in that the real power and goal of Student Voice is to move from hearing students to supporting them to take action.

Educators often worry that implementing Student Voice is hard to do. In addition, there is a pervasive sense that Student Voice is hard to sustain.  All sorts of reasons are offered: 

1. students aren’t capable of being analytical enough about their own educations 

2. faculty need to get through the curriculum so there is no time for student input

3. students don’t really care about school enough to bother engaging in shared governance

4. it takes funding that schools don’t have

5. the list goes on…..

TEA believes that these kinds of reasons and the unstated underlying assumptions about students to be inaccurate and far too tied to deficit-based teaching. The problem is, these assumptions are widely held among teachers, and even shared as a truth that is  “sadly obvious.”

Thus, the extent to which an institution leverages and then sustains Student Voice principles is very much uncertain. It is all too common for a college to reset itself to default mode, where the “adults” make all the important decisions, and students are placed back in the position of simply doing what they are told, and of being merely passive consumers of the education being offered. In the face of the Climate Crisis, this is untenable--especially when we know that when students are taught about the issues that emperil our planet, their first response is:

 “What can I DO?” 

TEA supports faculty and their institutions to provide a positive and engaged response to this question.