Blog
The Power of Stakeholders
Before I had children of my own, I never bought in to the notion that you must be a parent to truly appreciate the impact that different stakeholders have on your children’s lives; and I still don’t.
I don’t say that to be facetious or dismissive, but I’ve only recently considered the gravity of the impact that all stakeholders can have on children’s lives. The rich and diverse history that adults bring to the very moment they engage with children and young adults cannot be bottled or recreated. But still, these adults have a stake in these children, however small and however positive.
Then, children and young adults bounce from stakeholder to stakeholder every day. From the moment they leave their home, navigate through each period, then return to that home; they meet and take something from every adult that has an influence on them, to one degree or another.
As adults then, our most purposeful job is to ensure that our stake in children adds to their personal or academic development in a way in which will serve them for their rest of their lives. We all remember the teacher we respected and the teacher that we hated. Therefore, I wonder how much this degree of affability is affected by the cumulative experience of the stakeholders that children experience through each day. Does the impact simply add up, or is in some way multiplied in the experience of the children and young people?
Then stakeholders meet. Surely this is where student-focused outcomes are best realised, when all parties have something that they want to contribute for the betterment of the child or young adult. Some people may know already, but I’ve been meeting with a small group of parents to endeavour to improve the provision that we offer to our students, in an open forum. I feel like it’s the beginning of something incredibly powerful; something that will act as a vehicle for providing the very best for our students.
Now, only time will tell whether this impact will be achieved. But the intent and the desire to improve is there in abundance; and I believe this comes from the fact that we are all stakeholders in these students’ lives.
