What is Student Voice & Choice Really?
- William Givens
- Feb 13, 2023
- 2 min read
Hillcrest High School was met with a reality that resulted in students truly advocating for themselves. Students were forced to remove certain aspects of their Black History Program. They were instructed that they could not discuss anything that happened prior to 1970. Meaning the students could not mentioned the African Diaspora which gave this land life and culture, the students could not talk about the kings and queens of their royal ancestors, students could not talk about the fight for civil rights which made America what it is today -- or I should say making America, Students could not talk about Slavery, about Jim Crow, about Their Grandparents, about their Uncles, about themselves! The Students walked out the school! They should have!
How dare you, try to attempt to remove -- erase our students' identities and cultures from the curriculum. Are you crazy! Naw -- this is you -- this is normal -- you were uncomfortable. So you saw fit to eradicate your discomfort by eradicating our students' identities.
Allow me to reintroduce myself -- (Jay-Z)
My name is you got me F'd up
Although I am angry, I would like to offer up some thoughts for some actions in the future for others who may come to this equiTy in the Road.
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A more relevant and rigorous charge to a school would be that Black History could not solely represent slavery and civil rights! It’s so much Black History inside each of us and outside of those eras! Black History cannot be relegated to a single time period. But also, this is dependent on the curriculum prior to the Black History Project Based Learning Activity.
Were the students of color able to rewrite themselves into contemporary history?
Were the students given valuable choices and access to the entire African Diaspora and pre Diaspora
Student Voice & Choice is only as good as how much we the school can amplify their voice and how robust the choices are…
If we keep telling our students they are too loud and providing limiting and shitty choices — you can keep voice and choice to yourself!
At the end of the day, if we are advocating for kids but not providing a space in which they can do so for themselves, it is only another form of oppression!
In other words, we don’t care about your discomfort! Live with it -- Grow through it -- Use your power to change it. We did!
Mmmmmmm….. Each kid that attends a public school is worth approximately $100-170 (depending on the school system and state funding): there is a chart that displays this data (I forgot where, reader must research). This price doubles ($300) in the juvenile system. I’m saying that to say this… If we continue to live in a capitalistic society everything will remain the same, Morality must outshine the dollar signs. If we truly evolve into a society that functioned on a moral standpoint point America would be turned upside down.