Student changemakers

This week, I had the privilege of listening to two groups of high school students present on Google Apps for Education at SXSWedu in the Google booth. The honesty and clarity in their responses was worth any educator and developer listening to.

As I listened to the students, I thought about how often we make educational decisions without the input of students - how often we develop products without the input of students. Watching companies talk to our students about their searching habits and processes was a reality check and a reminder that student voice has a place in development and educational decisions.

How can we escape the element of fear and give students a chance to lead and to excel? As I watched the students, they were respectful, they were honest, and they were leaders. These were the same students who were labeled as shy or not competent to present. However, when given the opportunity to excel, they did.

How can we take that same leadership and have students leading PD and students presenting at conferences? How can we escape being afraid of students failing and give them the opportunity to fail and to succeed?