Learning Environment
Students have shared that they learn best in comfortable and calm classroom environments. These environments can be fun and also foster genuine learning and respectful peer and teacher relationships.
Relationships
Almost universally, students have shared that they want respectful relationships with their teachers. They have expressed how important it is for their teachers to believe in them and to understand them as whole people, not just as academic learners.
Equity
Many students have expressed the importance to them of having school staff who share, or at least understand, their backgrounds. This allows for learning opportunities to be aligned to their own experiences and for staff to be more relatable to them.
Genuine Learning
Students feel the focus of their education needs to be concerned less with their test scores and memorizing information. Students are looking for genuine learning. Learning that prioritizes making time for students to approach their teachers, to discuss topics with classmates, and to learn things in a deep way.
This website is dedicated to the valuable lessons we can learn from students’ own experiences about how to create better schools. Decisions about schooling are often made without listening deeply to students themselves. But students are in the best position to understand what they need in order to do well in school.
A collaboration of the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI), Harvard Law School and Massachusetts Advocates for Children (MAC). LEARN MORE