What is
Social Justice? Why is it important for our classrooms? As I thought about
these questions, I found it difficult to pin down exactly what the definition
of social justice is and what it isn't. The problem with defining social
justice is that it's not one singular thing that a teacher or anyone else can
do by themselves in the classroom. It's a collaborative effort that takes the
entire populace of the classroom to build a strong basis for social justice.
The blog that I'm basing my blog post on provides insight to a variety of
different characteristics of social justice what it really means to have it in
the classroom. The blog speaks of the goals of social justice, how to add
social justice to the classroom, fostering a conscious community, using diverse
material, applying social justice in the classroom to real world contexts, and
how students are able to take what they've learned into an actual attack plan
for the real world. For the sake of this blog, I will define social justice as
field that students can study in order to find the cracks and faults of our
culture relating to injustices of the social realm. To find social justice, one
has to locate the injustices and start mending the brokenness from the bottom. Though
this blog isn't scholarly based, I do believe that what the author is saying
has quite a bit of validity.
The first
section talks about the goals of social justice. Just like how teachers are
supposed to explain their goals and learning expectations, they should also be
explaining their clear-cut expectations for their goals of social justice in
their classroom. The article talks about how teachers should enable students to
voice their concerns and develop constructive conversations in order to create
a socially just atmosphere. The blogger also stated that through conversation,
“students can start to recognize injustice existing at the micro and macro
levels.” This is an awesome way for students to see that there aren’t just
monstrous problems in the classroom, but also smaller areas of concern.
Another
sections talked about adding the given philosophy to the classroom. Like stated
before, creating a socially just classroom will give students the chance to see
the type of society that is possible to live in and how they can positively
make a difference.
The
education system is being propelled towards student-centered curriculum. As
teachers, we must adapt to how students learn best. One of the ways is engaging
them with issues and material that is directly affecting them. Students are the
center of our world because of their connection to technology. They see more in
one hour on the Internet than we adults do in one week. They are exposed to
racism, gender issues, politics, moralistic concerns, and other social
injustices, so why would we not adhere to their wants? They love to express
their own opinions and if we can teach them to critically engage in the
treatment of any social injustices, then we are doing our job. As students
begin to develop their own views on social injustices, they can turn around to
their community and start to make true changes in the areas around them. It’s cliché
to say that the youth is our future, which may or not be the case, but we have
to start with the people who have the most driving force in our society, which happens to be
the youth.
http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/news/teaching-social-justice/
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