Journal #8: The Necessity of Social Justice in the Classroom

In my personal exploration of the Social Justice subject, I stumbled upon an Article on JSTOR entitled Do Educators Have a Responsibility to Raise Social Justice Issues in the Classroom? This seemed I was looking for and dove into it. It discussed the imperative of addressing Social Justice, but being sensitive to the groups with which you are discussing the topics. It is not to say you need to change your opinions for the groups you’re talking to, but to be aware of how certain subjects will affect your students, and how these subjects will be handled and viewed by different groups of people. 

From what I’ve gathered reading the Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Critical Pedagogy in an Urban High School English Classroom, education is trying to do what it was said to do. Education is trying to become the great equalizer. It is our goal to empower our youth for enacting change, making them feel like they can make a difference, and ultimately making the world a better place for all people. Certainly, through education we can introduce students to the realities of social injustice, but are all teachers equipped fully to handle the sort of turbulence the discussions of these subjects cause? 

I fully agree that discussions of social justice in the classroom are important. We need to be able to discuss inequality and aim to rectify it. We need to address racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, body autonomy, bigotry, and so on if we hope to create equality for the future. English and Social Studies classes are the most suited for these types of discussion, because these two subjects often bring up civil/human rights. In addition, students need to feel like they can communicate their opinions in a safe place, and school should be one of those safe places. They need environments that nurture discussion on these topics, because without them they may feel like they have no hope to change the system if no one is willing to listen. In addition, students with privilege should be subject to the opinions of others. Seeing different viewpoints and understanding why other people hold these viewpoints is key in thoroughly developing one’s own opinions.

The article I found:

Kohli, Wendy et al.. “Do Educators Have a Responsibility to Raise Social Justice Issues in the Classroom?”. Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy 14.1 (2003): 137–146. Web.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/43587172