Explore how taking creative risks alongside students can unlock powerful moments of agency, leadership, and connection. Through stories from the classroom, Nili Bartley illustrates how empowering students to lead not only transforms their learning, but also reshapes our legacy as educators.
“Your legacy as an educator is always determined by what your students do. You change the world by empowering your students to do the same.” — John Spencer, Empower: What Happens When Student Own Their Learning
John Spencer, one of my educational heroes, has contributed an incredible amount of rich knowledge on student agency, often based on his own experiences with students. In his recent blog post, 10 Creative Risks to Take with Students This Year, he shares his perspective on how critical it is for a teacher to be willing to take risks in order to help students reach their creative potential. That when we model risk-taking, we have an opportunity to empower our students to do the same and find their voices.
Jumping into the new can certainly feel scary. What was pivotal, however, ten years ago with my last class of fourth graders, was that we had a safety net of families and colleagues near and far invested in our journey. We also did not create every idea from scratch. What we did do was blaze some trails together, trying a few revolutionary practices in education, and my students made them their own.
Looking back, I realize we tried a lot. SuperYou — an arts-based curriculum teaching children to discover their superpowers — Genius Hour, Student EdCamp, student-led professional development, cardboard arcades, classroom chats, and more. As we explored each unique approach to learning and leading, sometimes shakily, I quickly learned an important lesson from my students. Trying something new together, with their investment, wasn’t just worth it. These kids taught me that, given the opportunity, they could trailblaze paths for others to follow paved with empathy, ownership, and leadership.
After attending my first EdCamp in March of 2015, I asked my students if this was something they would be interested in. Could I really hand most of the day to my students to teach groups of classmates something they were passionate about? It had never been done before in our school, and few educators had written about trying it in theirs. Of course, they were all in. Students decided their topics and led the sessions, leaving space for incredible possibilities.
In reality, it wasn’t as seamless as the EdCamp I had recently attended, but the importance of logistics quickly faded. As I walked around and participated only as a student, I witnessed conversations about school lunch, homework, app smashing, the power of positive thinking, global learning, makerspaces, and more. Two students who spent a portion of their day in a different learning space led the most well-attended sessions. One guided classmates in a drawing experience and another took the whole class through his physical therapy exercises. I was left speechless. The EdCamp students created became an anchor for all of the new experiences that filled the rest of our school year and beyond.
Seeing my fourth graders share their passions and lead each other helped me learn the importance of feeling empowered to bring our whole selves to school and be seen. This theme grew stronger as our adventures continued and fueled future experiences in my career. Years later, as a middle school technology specialist and personalized learning coach, I co-led a No Place for Hate Club. Along with students and staff, we brought student-led assemblies to the stage to build empathy, connection, and community.
At each grade level, students and colleagues who wanted to share their story were given a voice. Through writing, speaking, video, or song, students and staff took risks that many had never taken before, including me. The assemblies were real and raw. Even when audience members did not share the same experiences, they gave themselves permission to become immersed in the courage they were witnessing.
We ran several assemblies over five years, and none existed without fear. People got vulnerable. Something could have gone wrong. But the most important question I’ve learned in all these years is not "What if we fail?" but "What if we don’t?" The impact on our school culture was worth the risk, and students and adults alike learned about each other in ways that might not have existed otherwise.
As a middle school technology specialist, I taught coding basics to fifth graders. Students ended up creating phenomenal work, but the paths they took were unique. Computational thinking is hard work. Students knew what they wanted, but figuring out the steps and bouncing back when something didn’t work was a learning experience of its own.
I needed to ask my class for assistance and empower my students to manage the process. The Help Board was born. Students posted their struggles, signed up to help classmates, and tracked whether issues were resolved. Even attempting to solve a problem together became a powerful learning experience.
The Help Board exceeded expectations. Students helped each other constantly. One fifth grader signed up to help a classmate even though she didn’t know the answer yet, seeing it as a chance to learn together. I’ve since shared the “Help Board” with colleagues, and teachers have adapted it successfully for students as young as first grade.
Ten years ago, we jumped into the new and my students, imperfectly, knocked it out of the park. This lesson will always stay with me and has been shared and echoed by others I’ve been lucky enough to work with over the last decade. If you have an opportunity to try something new, I encourage you to invite students and colleagues into the conversation. You never know what trails your students will blaze, trails that might just make our world better.
About the Author:
Nili Bartley has been an educator and presenter for the past twenty years invested in sharing her passion for teaching and learning. She has been a technology teacher, digital learning and personalized learning coach, as well as technology integration specialist for the past decade and before that, was an elementary classroom teacher. She is dedicated to sharing and learning from fellow educators on the power of using technology to empower students as well as each other. Author of Lead Beyond Your Title: Creating Change in School From Any Role, Nili brings her energy around student and teacher leadership as well as purposeful use of digital tools to schools and conferences, thrilled to connect with colleagues near and far.