Voices of Education - How storytelling and perspective can better our education system by Dana

Voices of Education - How storytelling and perspective can better our education system by Dana - August 2018 Scholarship Essay

Nelson Mandela once said that “education is the most powerful weapon we have to change the world”, but from my experience the army of students in our country are ill-prepared for the battles that lay ahead. Yes, there are many other large issues in our world and they all pull our attention away from the seemingly less important topics like education, leaving the institutions unfixed and in need of innovation. But, that is where we have gone wrong. Education is no small topic. It is the topic that underlies all other issues. By understanding the issues in our world and having the tools to better discuss them, we can advance more quickly and at a larger scale. My podcast would bring the value and significance of education to light.

The voices of education are numerous and valuable in understanding the significance of education. As a society we often focus on the end result of an individual’s education – the successful business woman, the entrepreneur, the marine biologist – but never fully evaluate the road that led to the success. We ask, “Where did she attend college?”, “What graduate school did he attend?”, and “Who was her teacher?”, but care only about the name of the school or teacher, and not about the experience the school afforded or the impact that the teacher made. A student’s experience with education matters not only because it tells us a person’s full story, but informs us of the gaps in the system and the areas that are lacking. The perspectives on education reach even further than students as well. By understanding a teacher’s perspective, we can know how to better equip them for their classrooms where they will motivate, encourage, and grow their students. My podcast would focus on these and many other voices of education.

Who exactly would be the voices featured on the show? The first six episodes would provide an overview of the education system in our country. Each of the introductory episodes would feature a panel of school stakeholders (administrators, students, teachers, staff, and higher level officials) from a different education level (pre-school, elementary, middle school, high school, college, and graduate school). Each member of each panel would answer the same questions exposing the breadth of perspectives, experiences, and considerations in an education system. With this basis established, the show would continue on with one-on-one interviews with any of the mentioned stakeholder about their personal experience in schools. Additionally, there would be time for listener questions in each episode in order to engage the community. The overall goal of these interviews would not be to push an agenda or set a policy goal, but merely to tell stories because individual stories are powerful. The listeners can and will form their own beliefs about what the education system needs and what should be changed, and that is ok. Diversity of ideas is never bad. It is when those ideas go ignored and forgotten that we should be concerned.

This podcast would be a place of storytelling and conversation in order to illuminate an often ignored component of our society. Education matters and without community engagement it cannot reach its true potential. The voices of education can start the conversation we need to stir up change and refocus our society on the issue that needs more attention because its reach is too wide to overlook. We can arm our students with the most powerful weapon, and change the world.