Roundtable Structure: Creating Inclusive Pathways for Teacher Voice in Policy-Making

• In Event: Centering Teachers as Policy Actors: Structuring Inclusive and Sustainable Educator Engagement in Policy-Making

Abstract

It decentralizes expertise and affirms that lived experience is valid data. Key Principles Reflected: Transparency, empowerment, collaborative learning, and valuing diverse perspectives. Anchoring concepts with models or stories bypasses jargon, activates empathy, and grounds abstraction in reality. Honoring different processing styles (verbal, visual, solitary, social), giving all voices a chance to enter. The results build collective sensemaking and deepens understanding across differences. Validating the lived experience and illuminating social issues through story circles and open-ended prompts. Surfacing themes across experiences and perspectives encourages forward movement, not just dialogue. Reflection is the bridge from theory to praxis (transformation from abstract ideas to empowerment and action). Inquiry-based dialogues spurred by the convergence of personal experiences and the impact of political systems generate themes that bridge collective inquiry with action.

Authors

• Valerie Richmond, University of Colorado - Denver

• Maya Garcia, University of Colorado - Denver