What Happens When Students Decide How They Learn?

Students at Tennessee’s Elizabethton High School had goals to redesign their school. So, they entered into a competition called XQ: The Super School Project as part of a class project, learned about the history of public education in the United States, and designed a school that would carry them into the future. They named it The Bartleby School(an homage to Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener), a place that would subvert the status quo by challenging what was asked of students and giving them the scope to develop their own assignments. Now, with an XQ award in recognition of student leadership, Elizabethton High School has seen what it’s like to foster a learning environment in which students can exercise their voices. Through the process of designing their ideal school, students had a chance to ask for age-mixing in classes, practice leadership as student school board members, and get involved in community organizing improvement plans.

Senior Cory Fitzsimmons became the first student liaison to work with the Elizabethton City School Board, which taught him how to actively engage in decision-making and leadership. Fellow student Eliana Rangle says that working on the competition and electing Cory gave her an opportunity to learn “about working with other people and how to solve problems in different ways and not just look at it from one point of view.”

In participating in the school design process, students at Elizabethton had a chance to exercise their critical thinking skills and work with community members. Bartleby advisor Dustin Hensley says: “I want students to have the freedom to express themselves. I want them to have a different outlet than they’re used to.”

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