Fostering Self Advocacy Skills for All Students

What does it mean for a student to successfully self-advocate? Simply put, self-advocacy happens when a student, at any age, knows what they need to be successful and feels empowered to ask for help if and when they need it. The rise of innovative student-centered learning environments in K-12 education has increased the need for self-advocacy skills, particularly for students with disabilities. Educators are left to grapple with questions such as these: What are the best practices to teach these skills? What are the opportunities to practice these skills? What is the impact on student success?

This past week, I had the honor of joining a team of panelists invited by the National Center for Learning Disabilities for Austin’s annual SXSW EDU conference to discuss this very issue. Our session was titled Why I Won’t Ask for Help: Self-Advocacy for All. It was facilitated by NCLD’s Vice President and Chief Policy and Advocacy Officer Lindsay Jones. In addition to myself, I was joined by panelists Will Marsh and Dr. Manju Banerjee. Marsh, a student at Saint Joseph’s University, has been a strong advocate for dyslexia since he discovered his dyslexia in 3rd grade. He now runs an annual conference on the topic for parents, educators, and students called Spotlight on Dyslexia. Dr. Banerjee is Vice President for Educational Research and Innovation at Landmark College. She has over 29 years of experience in the field of learning disabilities, ADHD, and postsecondary disability services and is a certified diagnostician and teacher-consultant on learning disabilities. I brought to the panel my expertise in the area of personalized and competency-based learning as a high school principal and one of the founders of a successful annual conference on competency based learning that is held each summer in New Hampshire.

Lindsay Jones kicked off the panel discussion by expressing that self-advocacy may look different at various stages of life, but the skills are critical to success for individuals with disabilities. She went on to note that our current system is not set up in a way that empowers young people to become self-advocates. Self-advocacy can transform learning and lead to success in school and life; but it must be an intentional part of our education system.

Will Marsh has had to learn to be a self-advocate ever since he discovered he had dyslexia. On the panel he told a story about why he had to learn to speak up. “I had a teacher in 6th grade who did not understand dyslexia and my processing issues. We were prepping for the state’s standardized test and I didn’t understand the problem. Instead of teaching, he yelled at me in front of the class. I remember feeling so defeated and upset to the point that after school when I got home, I cried and said to myself I was stupid. In that moment of flight or fight, I wanted to leave school but instead I decided to fight instead.”

Dr. Banerjee noted that at the college-level, where parents are no longer playing an active role in a child’s education, self-advocacy is about articulating one’s needs and/or point of view to faculty, peers, administrators and other college personnel. To be successful, students must be aware of how they learn and their learning needs, and they have to be able to gauge situations to know when to speak up and when to try a different approach. Students are encouraged to focus on a growth mindset. Students face many challenges with this, such as wanting to fit in with peers while also balancing their learning needs.
The ability to self-manage their learning can be a challenge also. Dr. Manerjee encouraged college students to reach out and connect with offices and individuals who can help students navigate college effectively.

I shared some great resources that educators can use to learn more about self-advocacy skills and how to teach them at any level. Self-advocacy skills fall into the category of college readiness skills, sometimes referred to as work study practices or employability skills. While there is a growing body of research and tools to help educators navigate this topic, one of the best that I have found to date comes from the organization Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC), and their MyWays toolkit. In this MultiBriefs Exclusive, I also shared with readers ways that schools could add these kind of skills to report cards.

The National Center for Learning Disability has invested a lot of energy in the last year looking at this topic of self-advocacy, starting with a national summit that was held this past summer which brought together education experts from all parts of the field. For more information on NCLD’s work and their research findings and policy recommendations, visit their website.

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education.