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The Youth and Adults Transforming Schools Together Be the Buzz! conference was a tremendous success, bringing together 160 students and adults from 18 schools in November. The purpose of the conference, held at Goddard College in Plainfield, was to give students and adults the tools they need to make changes in their schools. The focus was on “what is possible” in schools, not “what is wrong” with schools. A full day of discussion and workshops posed the questions, How do we create a compelling case for change? How do we engage the community in transformation efforts? What strategies will help people re-imagine schooling? And, How do we use student-developed action research to inform transformation? A key tool to making change, as discussed at the conference, are the four Rs: Relevance, rigor, relationship and responsibility. For 11th grade student Mike Cyphers from Lebanon High School in Lebanon, N.H., the four Rs struck a chord. “They are really relevant to me,” he said. “They really apply to me.” He continued, “I always hear people say, 'Why is this relevant?' We learn better when it's relevant,” Cyphers said. “And with responsibility, I try to do my best to be responsible, so teachers trust me and let me do things that other people who aren't as responsible might not get to do.” Zack Bessette, Cyphers' classmate, said what resonated with him from the conference was a displayed quote he read: “There is something fundamentally amiss about building and rebuilding an entire system without consulting at any point those it is designed to serve.” He said he found it true that often the people the change affects aren't consulted in the decision-making process. “We generally don't have a say in how we're educated,” Bessette said. These were the kinds of conversations the conference was meant to foster. Youth and Adults Transforming Schools Together is an initiative of the Vermont Rural Partnership, a coalition of Vermont's most rural, economically challenged schools and communities. The goal of YATST is to increase student engagement learning and voice in decision making by creating a partnership between students, faculty and the community to increase relevance, relationships, rigor and shared responsibility in Vermont schools. The Be the Buzz! conference was so successful that three schools had to be turned down because the facility was at capacity. It was conducted in partnership with the Vermont Department of Education and supported by the Rowland Foundation, the Bay and Paul Foundations, and the Wisdom Connection. The day was largely coordinated by Helen Beattie, YATST director. “When I moved the maximum number from 110 to 160 because of demand, I was nervous,” Beattie said. “We were at absolute maximum capacity. The YATST facilitators could not have handled the challenge better – this conference exceeded all expectations. In the words of one of the participants, 'This program has really infectious energy; it feels like it is putting into action what many of us only talk about.' The sense of hope and potential was palpable!” Students sure had plenty to share. Natalie Stockmann, a sophomore at Burlington High School, said the responsibility theme stuck out in her mind. She said something she'd like to change in her school is that some teachers have been teaching the same way for a long time, and perhaps they should be updating their teaching style, by including technology, for instance. But she said she realizes that it is also the students' responsibility to constructively work to make that change. Poultney High School sophomore Dan Warnecke was inspired to work to engage the broader community to make “people enthusiastic about the school.” He said he appreciated that his principal and guidance counselor came to the conference, and looked forward to working with them to make change. “We probably have more of a voice now,” he said. “There's bigger stuff I think we should have more of a say in.” For instance, “Block scheduling – that's one thing I would change.” The long blocks of class – though for shorter portions of the school year – make for a tiring last half hour of each class, he said, and students might be more engaged if classes were shorter, but ran the length of the school year. It was a day full of energy and ideas. As Claire Daly, a sophomore at Burlington High School, put it, “I know there's going to be change. By doing this, we're starting it off.”
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