Social Justice In The Classroom

“Start Where You Are But Don’t Stay There” by Richard Milner is a book about dealing with diversity in the classroom in today’s day and age. It holds a focus on allowing all students to be successful academically and throughout their lives. Milner talks about several different case studies in which teachers must help students who are struggling. It goes through scenarios with Mr. Hall, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Jackson, and Ms. Shaw, who are all struggling with diversity in different ways. This book holds an importance in expressing ideas and concerns of equality in schools, and I believe it would be beneficial for all aspiring educators to read it.

The mainstream school system constantly reminds society that the school is no place for politics or a place to teach values to students. However, the school does do this with the idea of democracy and through mainstream education ways of teaching and learning. Sensoy and DiAngelo also notice social justice education is something thought of as “extra.” Teachers argue there is no time for social justice education because they have to prepare students to be tested. In conclusion, this falls back on the corrupt education system. Teachers are teaching how the educational system want them

Social justice courses are suppose to challenge mainstream ideologies; however when students are not prepared to hear this, they will shut it out and may lead them to question their place in society. This occurs when privilege, “isms”- racism, sexism, sexism- and the inequality that tends to be involved. This may also lead to students viewing themselves as “bad” because they are using a mainstream binary framework of good and bad. Though, using reaction to understand the material is very useful. One way that Sensoy and DiAngelo suggest changing these frameworks is through recognizing ones positionality and acknowledging the the dominant cultures knowledge is not the only truth.

Reynolds illustrates how there are a variety of different ways social justice can be taught, and explains how each teacher has a different way of implementing the same ideas. She provides examples of lessons a child might learn and the biases behind it teaching social justice. Reynolds is concerned with the age range of teaching social justice and when is considered the appropriate time. New teachers are now getting taught how to teach social justice within the class room, and the curriculum is changing to include aspects of social justice. Reynolds states how social justice is a branch off the bigger question of “who gets to decide the best

The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children by Gloria Ladson-Billings was a great resource in thinking about how I would work toward influencing my staff, and the school community as a whole, to engage in discussions about equity. Most notably, she advises us to “acknowledge the race and culture of your students and try to weave it into your teachings” and to “foster a sense of community”. I am lucky to work in a school that was founded and lead by a woman of color for the last 6 years, so equity conversations are not as awkward as they may be in some other schools. In light of recent travesties of justice that have occurred in the US over the past year, these conversations have the potential to become more high-stakes

The first article I read was titled “What Does Teaching for Social Justice Mean to Teacher Candidates?” I learned that its not the gap between age of the student and teacher, but the main problem is the teachers entering the field have limited to no experience or understanding of different races, backgrounds, culture, and class. Because of this, teachers are having a harder time working with diverse learners, and its common to see teachers holding grudges on these students or having poor attitudes towards this population. In this same article, they talk about this gap a little bit more in depth by saying “The academic achievement gap among different racial, cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic status groups of students is exacerbated by inequitable educational opportunities and resources, access to highly qualified teachers, and access to proper pedagogy and pedagogical resources.” From this reading, I have learned its very important to know my students and get to know a little about bout where they come from and their backgrounds to better be able to

Kelley-Browne, L. (2007). Training to Teach in the Life Long Learning Sector. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. 1st edition

Per the DVHS Handbook, missed class work and tests resulting from an excused absence must be completed within a reasonable period of time commensurate with the length of the absence.

During the first portion of this course our goal has been to analyze different theories on social justice in order to come up with our own theory on what social justice means to us. To start off we discussed the writings of J.S Mills. In his writings he described social justice as independance, stating that if human beings individually developed themselves autonomously and find harmony within themselves without conforming to any social structure than there would be harmony amongst everyone. On the other hand B. Barry offers a very contrary idea of social justice. He believes that although liberty plays a large role in social justice not everyone shares the same level of independence due to the fact that after the moment of conception there are some who have advantage over others. So therefore liberty alone cannot create social justice and it is instead the responsibility

The most important aspects that I concluded from the readings include: the social justice education project, disproportionate representation of minority students in special education and is common tensions in a pre- and post- Brown v. Board of Education era. The U.S. latina/latino population is rising across the nation however they are not rising in enrollment in higher education (Cammarota, 2007, pg. 87). Certain curriculum known as the Social Justice Education Project (SJEP) has influenced their viewpoints of their ability to graduate high school and attend college (Cammarota, 2007, pg. 88). Students enrolled in this project were Latina/o from working class families (Cammarota, 2007, pg. 89). The project also consisted of 17 students

A recent analysis was released based on 13 southern states where suspensions and expulsion rates are overwhelmingly higher for black students than they are of white students. The director of the Council of state Governments Justice Center, a nonprofit policy group, stated that “blacks are more likely to be expelled in situations where teachers or school leaders have discretion on deterring how to resound to behavior, such as when a student is deemed disrespectful or defiant or violates a dress code.” Educators are prepared for educating students but are not prepared to deal with personalities that they don’t understand. “People are doing their jobs or living their lives, and do not understand themselves as agents of oppression.”(Young pg.42) Studies have shown that students who are expelled or suspended are more likely to get into trouble and end up with criminal backgrounds, than students who are not removed from school. (New York Times)

Sensoy and DiAngelo point out that social justice education often only includes celebrating diversity rather than focusing on antiracist education. What would antiracist education look like in an elementary classroom? I recognize that diversity needs to be celebrated and acknowledged in the classroom, but I also want to be able to include antiracist education. These authors also note social justice education is something “extra,” rather than something that is included in the curriculum of schools. How can teachers specifically incorporate it into the curriculum regularly while still making sure students succeed on testing? The education system promotes mainstream behaviors from all students, which is the cause of cultural discontinuity. I will

Social justice education involves aspects of democratic education, critical pedagogy, critical multicultural education, and culturally responsive education, alongside with elements of social, cognitive, and systems theory. Theorists’ idea of social justice education emphasis on curricular content relevant to social identity and injustice, oppression theory, intersectionality (e.g., the analysis of various forms of oppression), and reflexive teaching practice is distributed by many social justice educators. Social justice education emphasizes critical multicultural education's emphasis on linking social justice theory and critical pedagogy, and progress in reaction to approaches to multicultural education that promotes cultural diversity than

It is important to create an inclusive social justice learning community to do this teacher’s need to be able to show emotions that engage with certain situations, connect to personal experiences, using a variety of activities to engage students in learning social justice information. Teacher’s want to provide a solid design surrounded around the concept of social justice education to begin teachers want to first, “ establish a learning community with various active – learning pedagogies that enable the participants to get to know each other individually” (116). The first quadrant of design is established to provide an opening activity to get to know one another and begin creating a learning community. The second part is, “develop awareness of socialization process, social categories, social group memberships, and social identities”(116). The second quadrant is the expansion of the core concepts and personal and social identity.

The notion of justice is existence of proper balance of rights and its access under the laws of land. It refers to not depriving any person from availing privileges, opportunities etc. John Rawls writes, "Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override"It means that the interaction in a society must be free from any sort of discrimination such as religion, race, color, caste or sex. It ensures fair distribution of assets and equal opportunity. José P. Laurel defines Social Justice as “Social justice is neither communism, nor despotism, nor atomism, nor anarchy, but the humanization of laws and the equalization of social and economic forces by the state so that justice in its rational and objectively secular conception may at least be approximated.”