Fostering Student Agency to Build a Whole Child, Whole School, Whole Community Approach
- Holly Henderson Pinter (Western Carolina University)
- Lisa Bloom (Western Carolina University)
- Amie Broyhill (Western Carolina University, The Catamount School)
- Kim K Winter
Abstract
In this practitioner perspective, we explore the concept of student agency through the implementation of a student government association in a laboratory middle school. Interviews with a social studies teacher and her students offer perspectives of the impact of student voice and choice for student experiences. We describe three major lessons learned through this implementation process: students learn to have healthy conflict and cooperative skills; students learn the appropriate processes to enact change in a democratic society; and students learn to conduct service for their peers, school, and community.
Keywords: agency, democratic classroom, voice and choice, middle school, young adolescents
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