Recently, we've noticed that young people are increasingly
joining together to have a greater say in national policy debates. A few
organizations have sprouted up in recent years started by young social
entrepreneurs. One that comes to mind is Students for Education Reform,
founded by two college students and focused on social justice and urban
education. Another is Student Voice,
which is all about giving high school and college students a platform to
express their thoughts on the issues they care most about. There are others and
whether this constitutes a movement or not is hard to say. What is clear is
that some millennials aren't waiting to have a voice on the great issues of the
day.
So it won’t come as a surprise that Student Voice is holding its
first-ever national summit on Saturday and it will be live streamed worldwide.
In fact, we at Girl Scouts will be taking part in Student Voice LIVE!, as the
daylong conference sponsored by Dell Inc. is called. Eileen Doyle, vice
president of program at Girl Scouts of the USA, will be one of the participants
in a panel discussion titled From Home to School to Community: Fostering the Student
Voice. The session will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. and you can view it online (as well as the rest of the conference) by logging on at http://new.livestream.com/Dell/stuvoicelive. And the Twitter
handles are #StuVoice #DoMoreEDU
You
don’t have to wait until Saturday, however, to get the conversation going. Do
you think that students and young people are all-too-often left out of national
conversations about issues that affect them, such as education? Would including
their thoughts and perspectives lead to better policies and programs?