Beyond Library Walls - Working for Social Justice in the School Library (LC submission 6 - Module 11)


Image result for justice is what love looks like in public

This final learning curation based upon the readings from Module 11 ends this course on one of the most important topics for me. Introducing students to Social Justice issues, hearing their reactions and discussions to these issues and watching them take action is, for me, a wonderful gift of teaching. While caught in midst of the issue, it is uplifting to see students passionate about these issues; getting involved, questioning the core of these issues and wanting to make a change.

All of this week's readings and resources were very deep, thought provoking and meaningful.
Read the article: "The King of Denmark and the Naked Mole Rat: Teaching Critical Thinking for Social Justice (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site." by Danielle McLaughlin, Director of Education for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Canadian Civil Liberties Education.

 What are the most salient points for you?

  • "How would it make you feel if she did that to you?"
How did something make you feel? Empathy. We need to start off with empathy and introducing students to situations where they can see and understand the feelings of others. However, if must go further, deeper than this. As the article goes on to say:
  • "If we cannot teach children to see a multiplicity of views, we are - none of us - learning from the experience."

    • (Reference to Stanley Milgram's experiment in 1963 was made in McLaughlin's article. Here is a Link to that article.)
  • "Why not?" 
Asking this question to students, continually, will (hopefully) have them dig deeper to investigate the causes and open their eyes to see more than just one view.
  • "Democracy does not, in fact, depend solely upon the rule of the majority; it depends upon the understanding that the majority should be subject to questions and that minority values and views will be tolerated where they do not cause significant harm. And “Eew Yuck” is not harm."
This brought me back to something I recently read in Brene Brown's book "Braving the Winderness". She quoted "I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain." -James Baldwin 

In her book, she had also talked about the importance of not using dehumanizing language; even though we may be opposed to certain views, we cannot travel down the road of using this language as it is seldom effective in getting the results, building the awareness or making the changes for which we are striving. Keith Edwards, in his BLOG summarizes many of Brown's lessons within the framework of Social Justice Education. Also interesting is his blog From Anti-Oppression to Liberation Social Justice Work.

This is on a tangent from the "King of Denmark" article, however, Edwards' blog directs us to Bell Hook's keynote address from the Women of Color Conference:



  • "They just understood that rather than acting upon arbitrary instructions or upon emotions, they needed to act upon first principles. But how do we teach principles in an era when our diverse societies are constantly engaging in conflicts of values and points of view? I believe that we teach justice by actively and purposely engaging those whose views differ from our own. We must do this consciously and creatively. We must invite disagreement, but also acknowledge that all points of view are not equally valid or justifiable. But if we find everyone to be in agreement, if we quickly find a consensus, we should acknowledge that someone must be missing. Whose voice is not being heard? We need to actively seek out views that contradict our own, or we may never truly understand our own views."
The entire "King of Denmark" article is full of amazing points to continually ponder and reflect upon in bringing Social Justice lessons and concerns to students. We need to find the missing voices and teach students to do the same. McLaughlin's point are so poignant, valid and must be taken to heart when bringing up Social Justice Issues.

  • "But, rarely are our children shown videos of First Nations people in Manitoba or Ontario who do not have clean and safe water, or decent school facilities. Nor are they shown the excellent living conditions enjoyed by the leaders of the countries in which people have no safe drinking water or schools."
This is a huge concern for me; we cannot ignore those in our own backyard. I think in more recent years, this is definitely happening more and there is a point of bringing greater attention to the issues.
  • Asking hard questions is just that – hard. But if we are truly committed to teaching for social justice, we need to encourage our children to find as many points of view as they can, and to ask questions we may never be able to answer, knowing that education for citizenship lies in the process of thinking critically about the many sides of a question and working toward addressing the inequities this process reveals.
In addition to the important points in this article, I would like to include links to a few other pieces about bringing Social Justice into the classroom

Online content to use in the teaching of Social Justice:
I have created another Symbaloo Webmix, specifically for Social Justice links for teaching Literature Circles.




Much to learn, many place to go; all on a worthwhile path in bringing these issues to the generations who will make an impact.

Sources:

Comments

Post a Comment