“Promoting Social Justice in an Urban Secondary Teacher Education Program” by Monica A. Medina, Anastasia S. Morrone and Jeffrey A. Anderson

      According to the authors’ source, Novak, social justice is “inspiring, working with, and organizing others to accomplish together a work of justice… that primarily involves the good of others.” (208) In a broader sense, social justice is taking into account the background and experiences of others to work toward accomplishing a goal that is for the good of others. I think of this like a treaty. One “tribe” has it’s own experiences, traditions and knowledge than another but they both have a problem. Even though they are different people, they use their combined past experiences, traditions and knowledge to make the best plan for both groups. They do not ignore the other’s situation or culture but use it to enact justice.

      Students may have similar experiences within an area and culture but diversity (of various forms) makes conflict overall. Morrone and Anderson taught preservice teachers how to use reflection and knowledge about the area and conditions their students live in to make decisions. Preconceived ideas about a type of people or students do not help the teacher teach nor help the students learn. Those ideas need to be worked past in order to make any progress. Instead, teachers need a clear idea of where their students come from. They need to research the communities and perspectives of the students. Students should feel safe and understood in the classroom, not alienated and bossed around.

      Social justice instruction should be relevant to the lives of the students. You may want to give an urban classroom a book about farming because it is diverse but it may not really be relevant to them unless the main character has some experiences the students can relate to. Students need exposure to multicultural instruction and they need to be taught cultural sensitivity along with that. Say a class watches “Hotel Rawanda.” They are presented with a conflict from a completely different culture. Some of the students in the classroom may have experienced warfare and genocide similar to that in the movie. Learning about another culture teaches students compassion asks them to think critically about their own situation and how the world should be.