UCY Question 3 – Youth Empowerment
This question comes from Charlotte Dwyer and Ny Holmes, two Grade 11 Ottawa secondary school students.
Preamble
“We recently organized Nepean High School’s successful walkout against Ford’s changes to the curriculum. Some of these changes include reverting the newly updated health curriculum (2015) to one taught in 1998, which will see topics such as cyber-safety, sexuality, gender identity and consent left out of elementary classrooms. This government has also deprioritized Truth and Reconciliation by cancelling a working group that aimed to improve Indigenous education in Ontario schools. We deserve better than this. We have to say, for a lot of us, it felt super scary and dark when Ford was first elected. Although the walkout gave us hope, and cemented the fact that almost all students our age are willing to fight for our rights in regards to our curriculum – we still need a sense of validation and commitment from adults. We want to know that they are helping us assert our rights, and giving us the knowledge and encouragement we need to continue this fight.”
Their Question
What steps are you going to take to ensure that students feel they are heard in regards to their involvement in THEIR curriculum?
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Related Resources
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- The Self-Driven Child (“It is not an overstatement to say that this is one of the most radical and important books on raising healthy, resilient, purpose-driven kids.” Madeline Levine, PhD.”)
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- Innovation Playlist – Ted Dintersmith – emphasizing small steps to big change
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- http://camlam.blog/category/learning/ (Student blog)
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- https://thefaultinoureducation.wordpress.com/ (Student blog)
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- The Lester B Pearson CHIP Program – A starting point for a grounded theory approach to changing the structure of school to better suit the needs of young people. Grounded theory is systematic research to systematically bring about change. It’s a circular process where research informs practice and practice informs research.
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- Mother Nature’s Pedagogy: Insights from Evolutionary Psychology. Peter Gray has been at the forefront of youth empowerment through self-directed learning. Publications of note by him are:
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- Free to Learn (book)
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- Self-Directed Education—Unschooling and Democratic Schooling (The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education)
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- Democratic Schooling: What Happens to Young People Who Have Charge of Their Own Education? (The American Journal of Education)
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- Mother Nature’s Pedagogy: Insights from Evolutionary Psychology. Peter Gray has been at the forefront of youth empowerment through self-directed learning. Publications of note by him are:
- BEFORE YOU GO TO SCHOOL, WATCH THIS || WHAT IS SCHOOL FOR? (This video was brought to my attention by the associate director of the OCSB with the comment, “it provides a good perspective on the need for change.”) The video I JUST SUED THE SCHOOL SYSTEM !!! is perhaps even more powerful at making the same point.