Advocacy

Students' success is in their hands when teachers teach students how to use their voice and their strengths to advocate for themselves.

When planning lessons for my students around advocacy, I wanted to create lessons that would be most prominent, engaging and relatable for first graders. Given that advocacy is such a broad topic, with lots of deep and painful aspects, I wanted to make it bite-sized and manageable for first graders to digest. Keeping this in mind, but also prioritizing the importance of students understanding social injustices and what they can do to influence such events, I chose to address relevant topics that were continuously brought up throughout class and during parent teacher conferences. Many students expressed how they had been bullied and treated unkindly in a previous grade.

I began by teaching my students about what advocacy means and how they can be advocates for themselves by using their voice and their skills. Students have the power to make change themselves when given the necessary tools and information. I want my first-graders to understand the power of their voice and how when they see something that doesn't seem right, they have the opportunity and obligation to correct that wrong and make the world a better place for all people and students.

The most important key point that I want to emphasize and reiterate around advocacy is the power of student voice and how students can use their voice to enact positive change when they notice injustices occurring within their classroom, school and community. When students can speak about an injustice they witness, describe it and voice why it is unfair and unjust, they can begin to develop possible solutions for that injustice and recognize they have the power to create positive change (Social Awareness and Responsibility, n.d.).

We began our advocacy lesson by learning the definition of what advocacy means. Advocacy means supporting and fighting for a cause (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). It is important that students understand what they can be advocates for, kindness, fairness, social-justice, restorative justice, etc. When students understand how they can be an advocate for their self and for others, they will begin to be more open and confident in using their voice to stand up for what they believe in and to voice their personal opinions. However, advocacy is more than just stating what you believe in. It is rooted in taking action. Once students understand they have the power to take action against an injustice, then they have been given the power to make positive change within their school and community.

After conducting a needs assessment within my class, with both students and parents, I recognized a trend that continued to come up with many families. Many students had been negatively affected by bullying and unfair treatment by peers in their classroom. I took this information to inform my instruction around our advocacy conversation piece and action piece. Students were unsure how to respond to a bully and how to prevent the mean behavior from happening. Below, is an in depth reflection of the needs that needed to be addressed within my classroom to prevent the bullying behavior from happening again and to inform students on how they could personally take action to stand up to a bully.

At first I was tentative about teaching my students about advocacy, mainly because I thought many of the advocacy topics that I had seen classrooms address previously consisted of heavy topics that I thought may be too mature for first-graders to comprehend and understand the gravity of. Through much research and reflection, I recognized the importance of having students understand the power of their voice and how to effectively use their voice in unfair and unjust situations. By doing so, students took ownership over a topic that was meaningful to them and collaboratively worked with peers and texts to create solutions they thought would be helpful to them and to peers similar to them.

The greatest result of the advocacy unit was watching and seeing my first-grade students grow into young adults right before my eyes. It was inspiring to see their passion and creativity behind an injustice such as bullying take place, and helped to solidify the importance of taking a stand in what you believe in. Not only did our advocacy unit teach students how to use their voice to take action, but it also created an intensified and stronger classroom culture and bond for all participants. Students truly took on the role of being a leader and a role-model by expressing their vulnerabilities and insecurities that many of their previous peers had used against them. Students truly supported one another through hard topics and showed leadership and a sense of familial attitude towards one another. Teaching students about advocacy reminded me about the importance of taking a stand and fighting for what you believe in to create positive change within the world.

References

BC's New Curriculum. (n.d.). Social awareness and responsibility.

https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies/personal-and-social/social-awareness-and-responsibility

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Definition of advocate. https://www.merriam-

webster.com/dictionary/advocate

The Glossary of Education Reform. (2014, December 1). Voice.

https://www.edglossary.org/voice/