Reflections: Advocating for Student Voice - How do we teach students to advocate from themselves?

While doing course work to enhance my knowledge in the area of Special Education, I came across a fantastic article titled, "Why is This Cake on Fire?" by Jamie L. Van Dycke, James E. Martin and David L. Lovett, that really made me reflect on my own teaching practice and Special Education.

These authors use the analogy of planning a birthday party for a child who never actually part of the planning to display the importance of student advocating for themselves in Special Education. The child grows up and ends up not caring about the birthday party anymore, because they were never involved in the process to begin with. Why should the child care, if everything has always been talked around them or taken care of?

We talk about the importance of student voice in our classrooms all the time, but I think student voice in Special Education or IEP process is definitely lacking. The birthday party analogy made me reflect on meetings I have had in past about student progress. Honestly, not many times did I consider active participation or leading the meeting by the student in the meetings with family. I always consult students to discuss their progress and strategies that work for them; but not often do I have the student explain/present their strengths and needs to their families. It is so so important for students to learn the skill of advocating for themselves and their needs.

Furthermore, I think it's easy to say that student's need to advocate for themselves, but as educators we need to be able to support students to acquire the language to communicate what their needs are and how they feel.

How do you teach the skill of advocation? What can we do improve student's participating in IEP, growth plan, student progress areas?

Full Article can be accessed at this link:
http://www.nssed.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Why-is-this-cake-on-fire.pdf