Student and Teacher Agency in Odds-Beating Secondary Schools

by Aaron Leo and  Kristen C. Wilcox

“We’re not afraid to be ourselves… we [have] academic freedom and flexibility.” – Sherburne-Earlville teacher

“…the student … as opposed to being taught to, they’re more taught with and we’re taught by them.” – Crown Point superintendent

These quotes provide insight into the relationships between teacher and student agency. According to anthropologist, Laura Ahearn, agency is “the socioculturally mediated capacity to act.”

Individuals asserting agency willfully act in the world. Although, the ability to assert agency differs depending on the circumstances in which one finds oneself.

Innovation and Agency Go Hand in Hand

In the latest NYKids College and Career Readiness study, odds-beating school and district leaders describe giving teachers ample freedom and flexibility to develop innovative ways to engage and challenge adolescents. In turn, teachers encourage students to be active learners and contributors to the school community. All with the goal of developing student competencies, sensibilities, and knowledge to make things that matter to them happen.

The focus on supporting student ability to act intentionally to bring about some desired goal contrasts with the traditional view of high school as a place to learn discrete competencies in core academic disciplines. Though research is replete with evidence that the traditional model of secondary schooling often constrains teacher and student agency, and does not successfully address student outcome disparities or the aim of addressing social justice issues in society.

Give Them Room to Think and Problem-Solve and They Will…

However, odds-beaters actively enable expression of agency and facilitate it by sharing explicit and implicit messages about empowerment and autonomy. Odds-beater Malverne, provides just one example of affording agency to staff and students by taking seriously their input on ways to solve problems and bring about desired change:

[excerpt from Malverne case study]

When confronted with “huge amounts of girl fights,” school leaders got together to “think out of the box,” asking, “What can we do to handle this?”

They arrived at co-creating, with students at the center of the conflicts, a “Growing Into Responsible Leaders” (GIRLS) club, with the upper grade girls mentoring their younger peers in how to “exemplify the virtues of a woman.”

They have since seen “a dramatic decline in the girl fights and the girl drama,” (school leader).

See more detail about affordances for teacher and student agency in the Malverne case study.