Give Your Students a Voice

Your Vision: For many reasons, immigrants and refugees are marginalized in our country. Most do not understand how or even believe that what they have to say can make a difference. We as ESL professionals can teach and enable them to express their experiences and perspectives to policymakers.

1. Identify your local policymakers--school board, city council members, board of supervisors, newspapers, state and federal assembly members and senators, state and local services, political groups. Focus on a particular policymaker. (Choose easier targets first.)
   
   
2. Identify what you would like to influence:
   Get to know your institution or program
   • Clarify an issue
   • Demonstrate how an existing law/policy is helpful/not helpful
   • Lobby for a particular bill
   • Give students a chance to express themselves on a number of issues
   • Get students involved in the political process
   
   
   
3. Create a project: (30 to 60 minutes length--create flexibility within it)
   • Take a small group of students to visit a policymaker in his/her office (students prepare list of questions to ask, personal history or experience stories)
   • Job shadow
   • Participate in some public activity the policymaker is involved in (rally, job fair)
   • School Event (whole school or class)
     International or Heritage Day celebration
     Holiday Program
     Students give tour of school
     Prepare an assembly showcasing your program/students
     International luncheon
     Students prepare list of questions to ask/interview to learn about that job
     A series of brief meetings with different groups
     Student speeches about ideas or experiences
     Demonstration of what students are learning (essays, art/craft, music, cultural exhibitions, skits, Internet site)
   
   
   
4. The Invitation:
   1. Prepare a formal written letter briefly identifying your school and the event you would like to invite the policymaker to participate in. Make a copy of the letter. In addition, a simple student letter would give a special touch. Send the letter(s). A personal visit to the office with the letter will have even greater effect.
   2. Be open about your date, if possible.
   3. Within a day or so of when you anticipate the letter will arrive, call that person's office and ask for their scheduler. Tell briefly who you are and about your school and re-issue the invitation. Offer to send a fax of the invitation immediately after the phone conversation.
   4. Be open to staff substitutes.
   5. If there is not an immediate yes/no, get a specific day that the scheduler will get back to you. If they fail to respond, call again. It is the squeaky wheel that often gets oiled. Be congenial but persistent.
   
   
   
5. The Event:
   • Prepare your students well for their participation in the event.
   • Give your students a framework within which to understand this policymaker's job.
   • Prepare yourself and your students mentally to allow for rescheduling. It is very common for them to reschedule events, even a number of times. Don't give up.
   • Give the policymaker some interesting momento of the visit.
   • Have your students write thank you letters after the visit.
   
   
   
6. DO THIS AGAIN AND AGAIN.....
   Plan to do projects yearly. Invite different people. Some you will make positive connections with that will continue over the years. Many ESL/Bilingual teachers inviting policymakers to their classes, year after year, can make a difference in policymakers' perceptions (votes and decisions) and in your students' lives.