The Best of Fischbowl- July 07: Where were the students?

In this blog Karl Fisch and a team of teachers are returning from National Educational Computing Conference; afterwards he questioned "Where were the students?" He was trying to inspire educators to get the students involved in discussions about what is best for them. He believe that on a high school level the student voices would be so much powerful. He believe that student involvement in lesson planning efforts would help implement what's best for the students. He said "Perhaps if we listened to students more, we might learn a few things."
I totally agree with him on this one. I think receiving input from the students on what works best for them shows the students that you are willing to listen, that you respect their opinions, and that you are interested in helping them learn. I think at any level, students should be able to voice concerns and participate in student voting on certain issues. I don't believe that students should be allowed to make decisions on what teachers are able to do in the classrooms. At the end of the day the teachers should get the final say so but should definitely try to implement student voices. Once educators allow student voices to be heard they will understand more from a students point if view and possibly become more effective teachers.