You Can’t Do It Alone!
“This isn’t the Patti Buono show” is something I have said for decades, and it applies to several different parts of my life. Not only my personal life, it applies particularly well with my CTSO involvement, because the organizations—FBLA and DECA—belong to the students, and should be completely student led. It should be engaging to the students. I am merely “hero support” on those teams. This phrase also works for my classroom teaching. While it is my responsibility to deliver material and make opportunities available for my students, it really does take a village for my courses to reach the pinnacle of success that I demand.
It might be me “on stage” in the classroom delivering material, but there is a world of people and circumstances behind the scenes making sure that the delivery system is working like a finely honed craft.
These are my stakeholders.
They are indispensable.
Identifying Stakeholders
For years, I really did think it was the Patti Buono show, and I think many educators feel the same way. We are often without significant guidance in terms of curriculum or delivery methods. Seldom do we, as business educators, have a complete “department” of colleagues who understand the world of non-core subjects and their importance. We are often relegated to the pile of “electives” that students can choose to take, and are not considered “high stakes” nor do we require prerequisites for students to sign up.
Once I started to identify my stakeholders, however, I was pleasantly surprised how many people I had that I could lean on and use to support my efforts in the classroom.
Stakeholders include anyone and everyone who has any type of interest or claim on your educational delivery. For years, I only thought about people within the professional educational system, and that is much too narrow—we need to expand our thinking, and involve as many different facets of our product that we can.
We need to reach out.
Now, I recognize engaging the students involves my stakeholders inside and outside of my school building. In addition to my colleagues, administrators and counselors, I now include district and state level people who have some expertise in the area.
Further, if I am truly attempting to prepare my students for the world of work or higher education, both of those sectors need to be considered stakeholders within my classroom. I have reached out to both the community college and state university in my town, so that I can correlate my subject matter to what students will face when they are done. To support their efforts at entry-level jobs in industry, I include several businesspeople from the community. I make sure to include both small business owners, and people within the corporate world, so I am covering as much ground as possible.
Finally, and probably the most important overlooked resource, I consider my students stakeholders as well. They deserve a seat at the table, too.
Building On The Strength Of The Individual
I built what we call a Steering Committee, which is a collection of stakeholders who drive the implementation of my curriculum through their expertise and experience. Each person on the committee has different strengths, and very different perceptions coming into the process.
For example, our industry leaders are very interested in us developing soft skills in our students—confidence, ability to present information, collaboration—none of which are directly tied to any of my standards. To support their very important desires, I have learned to incorporate soft skills into different projects and things that my students do on a regular basis, so they are getting the required curriculum, but creating deliverables that support what industry professionals feel they will need.
Throughout the discussions of the Steering Committee, it is extremely important that I involve district and state liaisons, who are the only ones at the table who can speak to the legalities related to education, and the parameters that I need to live with inside my public school. They are the ones, for example, who helped me develop deliverables that would support soft skills while still imparting all of the curriculum that is required by state law.
The Steering Committee also helps us keep an eye on the lens of the actual student, through the current students and alumni that I have invited on the team. They are the only ones who can speak to the rigorousness of the curriculum, and more importantly how what they are learning in my class can be translated to the world of work or education. Their mature and responsible opinions have resulted in me changing several of my projects and the associated deliverables.
Engaging Students and Stakeholders: How To Reach Out
In my experience, these people just sort of show up, make their presence known, appear on the sidelines.
I’ve recruited stakeholders at Open House at the beginning of school, by asking my students where they work, and just yesterday at a professional development opportunity I connected with one of my Department of Education people. I’ve made connections at the airport when kids travel to nationals, as well as by getting unsolicited emails from alumni anywhere from one year to two decades after graduation.
You just need to see them as more than just a fortuitous, chance meeting. You just need to look at every encounter as a potential to build a further working relationship with the person. You just have to be open.
If you are having trouble finding strong personalities to join your group, consider drafting a generic email to send out to the people you do know. Even if they can’t participate at this time, or aren’t the right fit, you’d be surprised how much networking goes on in the world, and you just might catch the biggest fish of all by casting on an empty hook.
Engaging Students and Stakeholders: What Is Your Ask Of Them?
Everyone is busy, and you will absolutely need to answer the question of “What are you asking me to commit to?” with your stakeholders. Be prepared with an answer.
At the beginning, you are really just creating a network of interested people to help you create the strongest business education department in your state. The initial conversations are designed more to gauge not only interest, but their expertise, and what they could potentially bring to the table in the group.
At this point, I have several things that I ask of my stakeholders. Hopefully this short list will give you ideas of how you can utilize the talent that you find:
- Participate in three meetings per year to discuss the overarching goals of the business program. Meetings are typically in August, January and April, and last one hour via virtual meeting software.
- Consider coming into the classroom as a guest speaker on any topic you think important and interesting to our students. You can choose the grade level, and we can discuss your presentation topic.
- Consider becoming a CTSO sponsor by donating time or money to one or both of the organizations that I manage. Participation at this level could include giving coaching advice to competitors, judging mock competitions before state conferences, and/or making a monetary donation to help offset the rising costs of traveling with students.
Keep The Momentum Going
All you are really doing is networking. You are building professional relationships with a wide range of people who can support what you are doing in the classroom.
Networking only works if you tend that garden.
Keep in touch with your stakeholders on a professional basis. Obviously, I don’t email them after every test to tell them the average score, or even after a big project to share a deliverable. But I do reach out for reasonable and interesting things that are occurring with my students. I let them know immediately, for example, when we place at state or national competitions, or our students earn scholarships. Stakeholders love to hear the pass rate on our End of Program tests, and enjoy pictures from graduation, as well.
You are building relationships, and that doesn’t just go silent for six months at a time.
How They Impact Your Daily Education
This pendulum swings swiftly and widely back and forth. For example, engaging students with a guest speaker impacts my teaching in a very direct way, using time I would have otherwise been filling with curriculum. At the other end of the spectrum, my stakeholders impact my overall curriculum choices by sharing their input about what is relevant and important for our future adults to master.
Overall, I have seen my stakeholders make a quality difference in the overall satisfaction of students with our curriculum and delivery methods, because we have adapted them to more fully epitomize the worlds of both education and the corporate world. By sharpening our focus on the real-life application of what we are teaching, we are benefiting our students and preparing them for their future.
The Benefits Of Stakeholders Engaging The Students
I had a warm-up last year about “affiliate marketing,” thinking it would be a relatively new and interesting thing for students to learn about. During the warm-up time, one student approached my desk, telling me his own affiliate marketing business was extremely lucrative and successful, and asked if he could present about it to the class. I invited him to do both of my classes that year, and this year.
That is stakeholder engagement at it’s finest.
THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FAR!!!
Wow, thank you for reading about engaging students!
Hey, since you’re here! You may as well check out family engagement for students, here, and learn about trauma-informed education, here! Check out our other topics here! Either way, I appreciate you!
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Resources
https://www2.ed.gov/notclamped/programs/readingfirst/support/stakeholderlores.pdf