Transcript

A case for student citizenship: Harley Litzlelman at TEDxUCDavis

[Music] just as a warning I have really bad allergies so if I sneeze or pass out in the middle of this it's it's okay it's not the first time um anyway my name is Harley lman uh I'm a professional Latin dancer and no I'm not um I am 18 years old and I'm a lobbyist uh so that probably sounds weird to you and it should because it is it may even be disconcerting I mean what business does this teenager have influencing the legislators you all elected but no fear let me allay your concerns and promise you that even if I was uh bribing legislators with hookers cocaine and suitcases full of money oh which I'm not because you know budget cuts um my influence my influence on the political process is woefully diminished by something much more innocent and forgiving I'm a student the it's hard to imagine a case of the deprivation of civil rights more generally accepted than the disenfranchisement of the youth I you might ask why can't kids vote I mean Have you listened to any of them they don't know anything but interestingly enough that's not quite the case because there are kids who do know things and anyway if knowing things was a voting requirement the size of the American franchise would be reduced to the seating capacity of this building but but but it would include most of you in this building rather the deprivation of civil rights according to age follows the basic logic that the youth have not yet aced enough Civic knowledge or developed the capacity to make an informed Civic decision but apparently it's only a matter of time that they will acre this knowledge and will develop this capacity but I'm not here to make any Hasty appeal for a lower voting age because that's a different discussion and hell I'm 18 and I'm not going back I'm here to argue that we can no longer rely on the passage of time to prepare our youth for democracy because that's effectively what we're doing we expect our youth to ripen into citizens like fruit on a tree and of course I'm speaking of the virtue of citizenship not the status so you can probably infer from my argument that I don't think schools are playing the role they should in preparing their students for democracy and you're right but there's a little more to it I think schools are actively stunting the Civic growth of their students because schools put students through a process in which they're put is not valued therefore the first and longest contact that any of us have with a public institution is one of obedience tyranny and fear which I think is slightly less than ideal but we have to be careful we have to be careful and how we seek to fix this situation because we cannot if we try to fix this with another top- down authoritarian mandate as we have tried in the past we will fail as we have failed in the past the spirit of Reform must resemble the goal of Reform we need to democratize the education Reform movement and engage with our students as valued constituents and our teachers as valued experts in education but let's think about this we don't we don't acquire values from formal instruction from me babbling to you from textbooks we acquire those values essential to the defense of what we value so if we it follows that if we want our students to Value Liberty Justice equality they need to have been raised to defend those values this is a question of the school environment and the fertility of its soils for democracy we need to we need to take responsibility for the psychological and sociological effect that the school environment has on its students and we need to manipulate this effect to produce the result we want and if the result we want is the complete preparation of our students of our graduates for democracy then civic responsibility needs to characterize every component of American Education this is a case for what I call student citizenship the active engagement M of students as valued constituents in educational planning as a lobbyist for the associated students of UC Davis my intimate connection with the student opinion and perspective informs my advocacy for students in Sacramento but more importantly my my occupation of these spaces of political process and educational planning further prepares myself for these Civic environments that I will one day Steward but let's think about the problem we send kids to schools that are convinced that kids need changing but but are also convinced that kids can't change schools no matter how involved you are in educational politics or just the general conversation in education we all know about the apparent crisis in American education but when students move through the system they they are not engaged in this Dynamic conversation rather we send kids to schools that tell them where to sit what to wear when they can play when they can work what they can work on what classes they need which teachers can teach them and of course if when and how frequently they can go to the bathroom does this sound like an environment conducive to a democratic upbringing but you may say hold on let's be real I mean we trust and train administrators to develop rules and standards essential to a safe functional learning environment and that's true we don't expect first graders to unionize but as I said before the progress to adulthood requires some acrel of Civic knowledge some development of the capacity to make an informed Civic decision so you would expect some gradient democracy according to the PACE at which students are reasonably capable of practicing democracy and are reasonably capable of negotiating their rights within the classroom that gradient doesn't exist that discussion is not happening and schools convince kids that there's no discussion to be had hey you get off your phone what are you doing get down from there put your hand down get out your book turn to page 394 where is your book this isn't wood shop what are you doing the Dignity of our rights is in large part founded on our capacity to CL claim them so the degree to which students are capable of Liberty should largely determine how liberated they should be and it should be the role of schools as breeding grounds of citizenship to challenge students with the responsibilities of Liberty Justice and self-direction because these are the virtues we will expected them as adult citizens but schools further dull any sense of citizenship because we have embarked on new industrial revolution of sorts a a mission to industrialize the Mind obeying a new Millennial dogma of standardization and accountability to high stakes testing we have effectively locked out our classrooms those components of learning essential to Discovery to inspiration and self- Direction but the argument for standard seems Noble enough that if we just teach kids what they need to know just to survive and get by then they can go on and learn what they want and major in what they will and have the lives they choose but when teachers schools and school districts are held accountable only to these metrics of student achievement regardless of what students want to achieve that becomes the only objective of [Applause] school yeah okay oh man where was I okay so an achievement yes so that means teachers in schools cannot AF for the sake of their own employment and survival cannot afford students the Liberty to discover to fail to be inspired to be self-directed and if students are not accustomed to a world that respects their rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness then they will have no ownership of their importance they may be taught in government class that these rights exist but if they are not engaged in a learning environment that actively Embraces these rights then they will have no reason to defend them so for what I'm talking about it doesn't matter all that much which standards we use or even which standardized tests when students are held accountable only to these homogenous standards irrespective of their interests personalities and and circumstances they are taught that those things don't matter to the people who do matter that's the common denominator of the 13 years they spend in public education and that's the impression that sticks but let's think about what the solution might look like if we Empower students with the agency to solve problems in their education I suspect they're going to come up with student- centered Solutions these Solutions aren't going to transfer the public good of Education to the private benefit these Solutions aren't going to alienate students with Draconian Zero Tolerance policies these Solutions aren't going to marginalize the Arts or stigmatize failure we're going to partner with our teachers as valued experts in education who need both our perspective and our support we're going to engage with our communities we're going to protect our environment we're going to think differently and it's going to make a [Applause] difference it's I've only been able to it's really hard for me to think about what education would look like if we empowered students to the extent I suggest so I call on all of you as in as people with voices as people in positions of influence to join me in this effort to democratize education but if you truly believe you are not in this position if you do not if you are not as fortunate to have these have these influence to have this power then as you enter roles of power and influence whether as parents teachers administrators policy makers Community leaders do not forget what it was like to not be heard do not forget what it was like to be to have your concerns ignored Because unless some serious work gets done then our children will be in the same situation and will be just as oppressed as we were so if We Trust our students as inheritors of tradition of democracy as stewards of Liberty and Justice if these virtues embolden every fiber of American Education from our curriculum to our instruction to our discipline and to our planning and reform I guarantee that these are virtues our children will seek to uphold thank you great job thank you step off with me to the side here they're going to set up for the next one um really really important topic really important topic both of my parents are actually retired teachers this is something that I think about constantly um I'm I'm I'm curious to get your opinion what what do you think about uh movements like charter schools that are looking to kind of challenge the existing Paradigm of you know the way that public education works so would you like another 10-minute talk U um Charter Schools charter schools that you can't look at any one charter school and say oh my God this is the problem well for some you can but the movement towards Charter Schools represents a greater trend of privatization as I said transferring the public good of Education to the private benefit there are billions and billions of dollars in education that private companies want to piece of and when we allow education to regulate according to Market incentives rather than social and public incentives then we have a major problem now now you you mentioned this a little bit during during your monologue um one of one of the challenges wasn't really a presentation you did a great job by the way um that was amazing I I definitely cannot do that um I have notes on the screen um one of the things that you mentioned is this challenge of people really care about student issues while they're students and then as soon as you move on from being a student I can test to this you start working 9: to5 you're working Monday through Friday the issues of being a student suddenly don't seem as pressing and you don't really revisit them until later on in life when maybe you have your own kids and they're going through school um what can people do why why is it so important that people care so much about remaining in touch with that identity of being a student uh we're going to take care of you when you're old that's a good answer that's a good answer one of uh one of my favorite statistics and I'm going to paraph paraphrase pretty horribly here um very recently a few years ago um there was a a statistic that came out that was talking about how um not only did we cross the 7 billion Mark in terms of human population on the Earth but we also had a very interesting shift in in the largest demographic on Earth and that's people who are largely our age early 20s to 30s um and what that represents in a Democratic Society is power is tremendous amounts of power we're talking about around the world and so I really really encourage you to listen to the message that Harley was saying that I'm saying with him don't forget what it's like to be a student don't forget the things that matter to you as a student don't forget the things that you wish you could have changed and do something about it as you graduate As you move on with your lives do something about it listen to this guy than so much