Student voice has the potential to prompt creative and transformative
teacher professional learning and practice. However, contemporary
conditions of education – including policy priorities and
institutional constraints – shape how student voice is taken up.
This article draws on data from an evaluation study of a student
voice programme (‘Teach the Teacher’) as enacted in two Australian
schools. Notwithstanding the possibilities of student voice, reductive
interpretations of teacher’s work risk translating student voice
into thin practices; the teacher becomes envisioned as technician
who needs to fill their ‘toolbox’ and find ‘what works’ by listening to 15
students. Analysing what is said and unsaid about student voice for
teacher professional learning in interviews with school leaders and
teachers, as well as focus groups with students, this article explores
the problematics of mobilising student voice for teacher profes-
sional learning. Questions are raised for those seeking to promote
reciprocal intergenerational learning in democratic schools.