Creating
Classrooms for Social Justice
By: Tabitha Dell'Angelo
In this post by Tabitha Dell’Angelo, she discusses how
creating a classroom for social justice can be done in any classroom, not just
the ones that are diverse or lack diversity, or the urban classrooms. Dell’Angelo
defines social justice as “recognizing and acting upon the power that we have
for making positive change.” If I’m not mistaken, I think educators hold a
significant amount of power and responsibility when it comes to making positive
change in their students’ lives. Teachers should also recognize that they have
to ability to teach their students how to create these changes on their own.
This is why Dell’Angelo suggests that “It's a good idea to give students
opportunities for seeing how positive change happens and how they can be both
actors and leaders in creating change.” This seems like an important step that
teachers should take when thinking about the lessons that they want to make. I
like what Dell’Angelo says about how “classroom walls aren’t magical barriers
to the realities outside of them.” In the context of social justice, this statement
suggests that social justice applies to the real world, so when teachers
incorporate social justice practices in their lessons, then they are preparing
their students for real world situations. In the world outside of the classroom,
students need to be able to think critically and form their own opinions which
are skills that can be taught by including social justice lessons. Dell’Angelo
uses an example of these types of lessons that seems to get a good response
from the students. She presents a scenario where students are learning how to
write letters and actually has them send the letters to a real person instead
of just having the teacher hold on to them when they are done. The students
sent their letters to multiple zookeepers and they even got responses. This was
a way that the students were able to put themselves in a real situation which
meant more to them than just writing a letter that would not be sent anywhere.
It placed more meaning behind what they were learning and taught them how this
lesson can actually work outside of the classroom. Lessons like this can better
prepare students for life outside of the classroom.
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