Teaching Social Justice in Theory and Practice, by Caitrin Blake

This article opens with the line, "Historically, classrooms have been the stage for social change, providing a venue to promote and accelerate new ideas." Classrooms are not merely a place for education, rather they are a place for empowerment and development. Caitrin Blake defines social justice as "hope to build a society in which individuals have equal access to resources and receive equitable treatment regardless of their race, gender, religion, sexuality, income level or disability." The way to do this in the classroom, she adds, is to foster conversation around these topics. The thing that stood out most to me about enabling this conversation and making it effective was changing the classroom dynamic to ensure that students view one another as "co-learners" rather than as adversaries when discussing these issues. This allows students to not be afraid of disagreeing with one another as well as not viewing each other negatively when they do disagree. The article also encourages teachers to explore classroom ideas from diversified viewpoints. Rather than viewing the Civil War from a exclusively white or black perspectives, one should include every perspective they can. This allows for students to have a better understanding of people who come from different backgrounds than they do and opens their perspective. Turning the classroom into a community of discussion provides for a way for the students to feel safe when talking about their ideas and viewpoints, which is necessary for them to understand each other and for their ideologies to evolve and expand.