The Schools Our Youth Demand
October 7, 2021
“People do not suddenly become human when they turn a certain age – they are born that way. With this being the case, [young people] have the inherent human ability to learn, grow, develop and direct their own lives as they see fit, just like anybody else. Kids do not understand everything, kids make mistakes, and kids need help and support but all of this can be said of every human being.”
[Image Description: A mindmap word graphic on a black background of themes that surfaced during the Youth Liberation Symposium. There are also small graphics such as hearts, paintbrush, megaphone, text book, gender symbol, magazine, and t-shirt scattered throughout the graphic.
In the top left corner, the graphic title "Voicing Our Demands" is in large yellow font. On the right, phrases from symposium particpants are in small red, yellow, or gray font. Phrases include "we demand a seat at the table", "native plants", safe space for BIPOC", "educate on racism", "community development", "createive expression", "being radical organizers", "find co-conspirators", "learn ethnic studies", "radicalized incident reporting", "public schools", "it takes effort to show up", and "you are never alone,"
Below the title, in medium-sized yellow font are three primary themes. From left to right, the three primary themes are "Representation", "Respect Our Health", and "Educators." Each primary theme is surrounded by subsets and phrases related to that subset.
The first theme is "Representation." There six subsets surrounding that theme are clockwise as follows: disabled people, student voices, marginalized communities, BIPOC, true history, and queer & trans. Each subset has related phrases in small red, yellow, or gray font. The first subset is disabled people. The related phrase related is "increase accessibility." The second subset is student voices. The related phrase is "different abilities." The third subset is marginalized communities. The are no related phrases. The fourth subset is BIPOC. The related phrases are "racial literacy", "our history", "ethnic studies taught by people of color", "remove anti-Arab language", and "anti-racist education." The fifth subset is true history. The related phrases are "native genocide", "inclusive text books", and "move away from eurocentrism." The sixth subset is queer & trans. The related phrases are "sex ed", "gender neutral bathroom", "free menstrual products", and "names."
The second theme is "Respect Our Health." In small red font are phrases related to to this theme. The phrases are "mental and physical", "rehabilitation space", and "equals not subjects."
The third theme is "Educators." In small red, gray, or yellow font, the phrases related to this theme are "restorative council", "consult students", "equitable dress code", "pro dev training", "hire diverse faculty", "reflects the student body", "vote on school policy", "involve students", "respect different learning styles", "advisory teachers", "mental health", "student's choice", "supportive", and "students evaluate teachers anonymously."]
InkFactory Studio captured these visual notes from our Youth Liberation Symposium in August 2021.
For generations, demands have been an organizing tool that communities use to unite, guide, and propel their efforts for justice and liberation. Nearly every community organizing effort holds demands as the pillar of their work. Demands are also a way that community members make measurable goals for institutions they organize within.
Students and student voices must lead our work in building equitable and liberatory schools. At the core of chronic inequity is a lack of empathy for students and families who are most negatively impacted in our systems. Student voice and leadership is one of the most compelling ways to make the case for change. Since students are the main stakeholders in their school communities, they should be voicing the needs of their community and deciding the destiny of their schooling.
“It’s important to remember when we’re going into this work that young people have just as much to say as any adult. Lived experiences, no matter what your age, are going to have truth to them and it’s important that we uplift those lived experiences and listen to them, especially in school where young people are the ones who are the main stakeholders, and the main people that we’re doing all this for. School exists to serve the students.”
We hope to transform power by supporting students to be leaders in their schools and in their larger communities. Our work as educators reaches farther than our classrooms because we hope to not only create equitable and liberated schools, but also an equitable and liberated world. Demands are one of the ways we connect our work to movements for liberation outside of schools. Movements throughout history have used demands as an organizing tool and many of the demands that are made in our schools are the same as the ones we see in movements throughout history.
“We need as many examples as possible for young people to find their way into being change makers in their communities.”
Youth don’t need adult saviors to liberate them or create equity for them; adults can be co-conspirators who aren’t afraid to concede power and let youth lead. Demands put power in students' hands to make decisions about their own day-to-day lives, overall dignity, and destiny. Having real agency is an experience that is very rare for most young people, especially BIPOC/queer/working class/marginalized youth. Making demands is an act of liberation in itself.
If you’re an adult educator, you may feel uncomfortable or even defensive when it comes to the idea of students making demands of you and their schools. This requires commitment to dismantling the inequitable and hierarchical thinking we have been conditioned to believe. Our schools are designed in a hierarchical structure where the voices of adults are generally valued more than students. When we experience discomfort, it’s because we are experiencing a shift in power relations and making steps toward a new equitable structure that centers the needs of students rather than the position of adults.
Resisting the status quo is hard and uncomfortable because the structure of our schools was designed to protect it. A structure that does not make space for students to lead is not a structure in which equity and liberation can exist.
Thinking About Adultism
What are some examples of ways adults treat young people that would be considered oppressive if it were toward another group of people?
How is not listening to youth harmful and sometimes even dangerous for young people?
What is the relationship between age and intersectionality? How does being young make already marginalized folks even more marginalized?
What are our goals as educators? Can we truly reach any of these without partnership with young people?
Youth Demands
We launched our NEP-BELE Network this summer with a Youth Liberation Symposium, an entirely youth-led virtual symposium. Youth from across our network of 18 school districts connected to learn about the history of education liberation struggles and dive into questions around their own activist identity. The week culminated in youth from each district in attendance developing and sharing a list of Youth Demands for their own school districts. The Youth Demands surfaced by the students (in grades 6-12) cover a broad range of themes.
Here are a few examples:
Hiring & Staff Development: We demand that schools hire teachers and faculty that represent the diverse identities present in our school community including members of the Black, Brown, Latine/x, Asian, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, and disabled community.
Curriculum: We demand ethnic studies that accurately represent our truest histories and are relevant to our different backgrounds.
Decision Making & Engagement: We demand to determine the destiny of our education: as the primary stakeholders in this institution, we demand a seat at the table in all decision making processes.
Pedagogy: We demand that the classroom be a place of mutual recognition, where both teachers and students recognize the humanity of one another. Students get to recommend how they want to be taught, and teachers adjust their curriculum/lesson plans to accommodate both parties.
Discipline & Restorative Practices: We demand that administrators utilize restorative practices in all disciplinary actions with adequate follow-up for victims.
Queer & Trans Rights: We demand an accessible system to change deadnames on school IDs, emails, and attendance without parents permission.
Health & Wellness: We demand a detailed and solution-oriented education about our bodies and physical health at a young age.
Dress Code & Body Autonomy: We demand schools eliminate racist dress codes: e.g. allow hijabs and durags.
BELE-District Network: Centering Student Experience
Centering student experience is one of the essential actions of Building Equitable Learning Environments (BELE) Network.
Centering Student Experience: Students can be more fully and equitably engaged as learners and leaders in the design of their learning when we seek to understand and respond to their desires, interests, perspectives, and experiences, using that knowledge to drive decision-making, design, resource allocation, and accountability structures. - BELE Network Essential Actions
Our NEP-BELE District Network launched last month with the youth demands at the center of the work our district teams will get up to this year. This video features Iza McGawley, one of our Youth Advisors and a co-creator and lead facilitator of the Youth Leadership Symposium. They spoke at our full Network Launch in September 2021.
Image description: Iza McGawley, a light-skinned young adult with short curly brown hair and bangs speaks from the upper right corner of the screen, with a red box and the following quote:
"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." - Frederick Douglass, 1857
“Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.”
Resources on Youth Leadership & Voice