Advocating for Education: Sharing your Teacher Voice, Part II

Advocating for Education: Sharing Your Teacher Voice, Part II Shelbie Witte, Ph.D. Oklahoma State University

In the last column, I shared Elevator Speeches as a way of succinctly sharing issues that matter most to you as an educator. In this issue, I wanted to share a few ideas to inspire you to advocate for your students in the larger community by sharing your message more broadly. Putting our thinking into the world can feel scary/intimidating/intrusive and yet, as we remember from our last issue, we must own our expertise and part of owning it is sharing it. I want to emphasize that most of this work must be done outside of the school day and on your personal devices so as to not create a conflict of interest or to be accused of using your school property for political influence.

1) Follow Your Students Lead: Want to be inspired? Take a look at the work of students from all over the world at the Letters to the Next President 2.0 site: https://letters2president.org/ Started in 2016, the National Writing Project wanted to provide a forum for youth to share about issues that mattered most to the next generation of voters. This site, built by teachers for teachers and students, engaged partners from all over the world who were interested in promoting and supporting youth civic participation. Just reading a few of these letters is enough to light a fire in your belly and motivate you to take a stand for these kids and the millions of others who have voices, but haven’t had the opportunity to share them. Using the letters shared as mentor texts or as springboards for community action projects would provide a larger audience for your students. Then share, share, share….share as widely as possible with the people in your neighborhoods and communities. Change the narrative about the types of work happening in schools by sharing loudly and proudly!

2) Op-Eds and Letters to the Editor: Many newspapers and online news providers provide opportunities for op-eds, public arguments for change, and letters to the editor.

Sharing your celebrations or concerns more broadly allows the community writ large an opportunity to better understand what happens within our schools and the impacts that policies and legislation have on the students in our schools. Dr. Lawrence Baines, at the University of Oklahoma, shares many great examples such as this one to the Tulsa World: goo.gl/jqopqz

ReThink Media offers great resources online to help you narrow down the right avenue for your Op-Ed, https://rethinkmedia.org/blog/millennial-guide-companion-where-pitchyour-op-ed, as well as ways to frame your thinking for the appropriate audience.

3) The Twittersphere: Twitter is not for the meek of heart and to enter into a politically charged debate in Twitter can take years off of your life. However, some of the best educational thinking in the country is being debated and shared right now in the Twittersphere and is one of the easiest ways to engage in conversations with elected officials, educational leaders, and even celebrities.

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I started Twitter as a lurker. I did a lot of reading and paid attention to how messages were being constructed and how they were being received. I found like-minded people and others that I did not agree with and followed both, because balance is important! Some of my favorite educational Twitter users to follow include: @PaulWHankins @nenagerman @Shekemasilveri @Heisereads @Triciabarvia @claudiaswisher @anterobot @frankisibberson @skajder

If you decide to be an Advocacy Twitter user, appropriate use and placement of hashtags, #elaok for example, can make sure that your advocacy message is being seen by all of the right people. When Twitter users retweet your message, it grows legs of its own and can be seen by thousands of people before you realize you’ve pushed the Tweet button. Be careful...yes, you can delete a tweet, but as we know not everything deleted is really deleted and deleted Tweets often have a life of their own through screenshots. It’s also important to put a disclaimer on your Twitter account that the thinking expressed is your own and not representative of your school or classroom.

And a final word of caution: entering your thinking into these spaces is opening the door for others to comment on it. There will be a range of comments, from level-headed to bizarre, and ultimately, most of the comments have nothing to do with you, personally, even though they may feel like it. Ignore the negative, focus on the positive, and continue to be an active and engaged advocate for your profession and for your students.

Shelbie Witte is the Chuck and Kim Watson Endowed Chair in Education and Professor of Adolescent Literacy and English Education at Oklahoma State University. She also serves as the director of the Oklahoma State University Writing Project and the founding director of the Initiative for 21st Century Literacies Research.

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