Shut Up I Am Listening to You
[Applause]
i know what you’re thinking
socially distanced auditorium
exponential graph
showing the uk the usa and sweden
right at the top you could be forgiven
in 2020
if you’re sitting there thinking he’s
going to talk about the disease right
well if we put our selective attention
bias to one side
you’d actually be half right but this
outbreak
did not start in the last 12 months
loneliness is not a new affliction
in fact many years before her death
mother teresa said
that loneliness was the most dangerous
of all human diseases
and whilst we must be careful to not
confuse loneliness
with aloneness as we can see here there
is a rapid rise
in the number of people who are going to
be living on their own
and therefore we could be expecting to
see
a new social epidemic appear on the
horizon
the data suggests we are not there yet
however
we should begin to prepare now for this
new challenge
connecting people and supporting those
who are either living alone
or who will no longer get their sense of
belonging
from their household unit we can’t rely
on governments
to provide this solution so we must as
members of the community
stand up and look for ways that we can
provide this
and where better to learn how to do this
than in our schools
now schools are a microcosm of the
society that they serve
however in one area they are coming up
short
whereas a well-functioning civil society
encourages us to stand up
speak out and take action schools have
often been guilty
of being one-way streets where the flow
of information ideas
and direction comes purely from the
teachers
to the students
so how do we address this well it wasn’t
actually always that way
back in 350 bc plato actually ensured
there was student representation in his
academy and he did this
through a rotating leadership of
students elected
by a secret ballot we can look to modern
education
john dewey the american philosopher in
1917
who wrote about the inclusion of
democracy in our schools
and many schools listened and i think
you’d agree that it’s hard to go to any
school
in europe america or international
schools
and not find a student council sitting
alongside
the adult equivalent so problem solved
right
wrong in a recent study of 66
000 students 40 percent still claimed
that they felt they had little or no
voice
and one-third of students said they felt
persistent painful feelings of
loneliness
so why is this well if we look at
student councils they actually suffer
the same practical problems that our
adult equivalents do
for example although the election and
the campaigning is really exciting
it often gets reduced to a beauty
pageant or a popularity contest
and as a result when the party’s over
students often complain that they’re no
longer given the time and space
not only to meet as a leadership
committee but to meet with their
constituents
to listen to new problems and bring
those up the chain
student leaders are rarely given the
training they need
and as a result if you attend a
student-led meeting they often struggle
to get past the first item on the agenda
and just descend into
long conversations about problems with
the school canteen
or inadequate toilet facilities
some students do say that they are
invited to discuss meteor
issues however again they sometimes feel
it is merely a
tick box exercise and they are just
there to rubber stamp
a decision that has already effectively
been decided
by those higher up as a result some
researchers say
that student councils may do more harm
than good
to uh to the students because it
actually reaffirms that authentic
student voice
remains out of reach now that’s not true
of all student councils and many of
those practical implications
could be addressed but there does remain
two
structural issues that are much harder
to escape
the first is a construction bias and by
this i mean
who was it that set up the design and
structure of your student council
was it the students that decided how
many representatives there would be
how you would be elected and what would
be your remit
very often the answer is no and this
leads to a second problem
a form of state capture or
self-fulfilling prophecy
as a result of this many students aren’t
interested in student councils
and those that are are those who are
already thriving
under the status quo and therefore have
a lot of their own social capital
already so this means that even in the
best schools with a fully functioning
student council there remains
representational blind spots
now it’s not just schools that report
this problem and ernesto cirelli in his
fantastic ted talk on sustainable
development
said that the smartest most passionate
local people
don’t go to community meetings
he was talking about student
entrepreneurs
and he his solution was to take to the
streets to find them
now i think that our solution looks
slightly different in schools
i picture this as the neurons in a brain
where only
part of the mind is firing and other
elements lay dark
and dormant and our solution is to
create new pathways for students
to engage in their school firing them up
and bringing the school to life
i believe there are three ways that we
can do this the first
is to encourage and foster student-led
social enterprises now
entrepreneurs by their very nature
always looking around for opportunities
to meet consumer demand and student
entrepreneurs
are uniquely placed to be able to listen
and understand the needs of their peers
and there is no better incentive than
profit and cash to be able to motivate
them
to meet this goal however
if we ask them to set their business up
as social enterprises
and require them to give something back
then
not only does that create a bond with
their
with their school community but gives
them that sense of meaning
i’ll give you an example up here in this
picture
it’s quite blurry because i took it
while i was being pushed by a throng of
students
trying to get to the front of a sale of
house hoodies
before the stocks ran out now the
students at the heart of this
this was not their first business
venture and in fact their empire also
contained a bricks and mortar shop that
sold stationary and snacks
and a suite of smart vending machines
littered across the school
now what was interesting is at the heart
of this
were six students two generations of
final year students
one passing the leadership to the next
and only one of those six
was also a formal member of the school
prefect team
in fact three were also identified as
students of concern
at the start of their high school years
however through their engagement with
the community
by setting up these businesses while
they let by the time they left
they’re in a very different position and
that wasn’t just because of how
successful they were
at meeting consumer demand but it was
how thoughtful they were
in the ways they gave back to the senior
students
they had a free fruit bowl in the ib
common room every day
to junior school they sponsor remote
control cars for a stem project
and they even funded 16 hardwood
benches and chairs to create an outdoor
canteen space
as their legacy when they left a second
pathway for students
is to consider passing over
the running development and delivery
of community events from our staff
to an empowered student body now it’s
not new
to have a committee to set up the school
prom
but why stop there from discos
to the sports day the entire intramural
or house competition
would be better run by an empowered
student body
now the key to getting this right is to
ensuring it is as
close to 100 percent run by students
as possible now unfortunately this means
that
you will face the brunt and the pain and
stress
that comes with delivering a project on
time
and to budget but it is the students
that will soak up
all of those plaudits when they run a
successful event
and hopefully this fires them up to not
only deliver more at school
but when they leave finally the third
pathway
is for schools to not just allow but to
actively encourage
student activism in whichever form they
want it to appear
written solutions are the most authentic
feedback that we have
and not only empowers that student but
those around them
who may be suffering in silence one
student i know
set up a group called girl talk which
was a safe space
for students to attend to talk about
issues at school
now she insisted to have no advertising
except for word of mouth she felt that
was essential
so that those who may want to attend
understood that it was separate
from other official school committees
and organizations
within two months two members of the
lgbt community
approached her and asked how they could
set up their own space
six months later not only did they have
this
but they had secured funding from for
the student leaders to receive
counselling so they were better uh they
were better able to advise younger
students who are approaching them
with problems so what do schools do
if they want to foster this sort of
culture that is conducive
to this type of student agency i think
there are four things
the first is to set them the challenge
i think schools should consider writing
a second student mission statement
that sits alongside the schools but this
one
should put the students right at the
center and define you
as active change agents within it and
then you should be tasked
with becoming that change agent secondly
schools should just say yes say yes
and clear the path rather than dishing
out the red tape and putting out hurdles
for
students schools should make it a policy
to say yes to all student-led
initiatives
that they come up with and instead
reassign their administrators
for working out what roadblocks need to
be cleared
to give the students the best chance
success
thirdly why don’t we consider
repositioning
staff leaders to become consultants and
coaches for students
our schools are filled with adult
experts who can help with finance
marketing and organization
and they can act in the same way as
incubator organizations do for start-up
companies
and in doing so that student has a staff
champion
whenever they may need to call on it
now finally i believe that schools need
to be mindful
that success should not be judged by the
outcome
but by the process this is my final
point
but i think it should be the first words
that come out of the school’s mouth
business research shows that many firms
fail to harness the creativity
and entrepreneurial spirit of their
employees because they only
celebrate successful ideas after they’ve
become successful
the cost of failure is too big for many
to put up their hand
so schools need to be mindful of this we
need to celebrate
a new student idea as soon as it’s
initiated
and celebrate it again in the early
stages
not only should this motivate the
student to stay the course but it should
fire
up those around them to put their good
ideas into practice
as a result of following these four
steps i believe
we can create richer school communities
full of students
that have a greater sense of belonging
to their school
and are better equipped to find that
sense of belonging
in their wider communities and through
belonging
we can begin to cure loneliness thank
you