Centering Youth Voice: Celebrating the Conclusion of the Youth as Champions Pilot
Elevate Teaching has concluded its Youth as Champions (YAC) pilot program! YAC is a cohort of youth-serving organizations from across Minnesota that facilitates content creation by young people, for young people, with a focus on elevating the teaching profession.
Participants learned from communications professionals about creating impactful communications, applied these skills to develop social media content, and contributed to the Elevate Teaching Movement, influencing its key messages, events, and communications.
What to learn about how Youth as Champions centered youth voice?
Out of 42 registered youth, 21 completed the YAC program, with 56% coming from greater Minnesota. The average age of participants was 16 years, and 65% of registrants identified as nonwhite. Participants created their own content and provided over 125 ideas for future Elevate Teaching posts and stories to elevate the teaching profession.
Youth Created Content
Participants expressed positive impressions of the six key themes associated with Elevate Teaching. However, they had a more favorable view of "Teaching is Opportunity" and a less favorable view of "Teaching is Evolving" by the end of the program.
Youth as Champions engaged participants in various ways to identify the most effective strategies for targeting youth and elevating the teaching profession, and their insights were enlightening!
Number of Strategies Youth Mentioned per Theme
By far, the most frequently suggested strategy was advertising, promoting, and advocating for the importance of the teaching profession. Additionally, increasing student involvement and perspective, as well as sharing teacher stories, were also commonly cited. Participants advocated for increased support, pay, and respect for teachers, along with building more positive connections and relationships. They emphasized the need to remove barriers and expand opportunities, particularly for teachers of color, as well as the importance of increasing diversity and representation in schools.
An interesting finding was that youth resonate with the idea that “teaching is creative…and fun!” Their positive memories of teachers often included enjoyable activities or lessons, and they highlighted the importance of replicating these experiences for future students.
Elevate Teaching is working on securing funding to continue to support YAC, as well as other youth engagement efforts. Any announcements on future youth outreach work will be posted on @ElevateTeaching on Linkedin or by signing up for the Elevate Teaching email newsletter.
