The topic that I would like to explore is social justice,
and how it can be incorporated in the classroom and especially to my discipline
of art. I already know a few things about social justice and have taken a class
about climate change and a class about art and social movements. I learned a
lot from those classes about the different issues as well as movements occurring
across the nation and worldwide. There are a lot of problems going on that need
our attention; worldwide poverty, racism and sexism, climate change, human and
animal rights, and many more. I’ve always been one to stand up for what I
believe in, find the truth, and research information about what can be done. Social justice
teaching isn’t about making kids afraid of the world, but about informing them
and empowering them, allowing their contribution and ideas and showing them
they can make a difference in the world. I still want to know a lot about this
topic. I want to know how to teach social justice in the right way so that kids
will feel empowered and motivated instead of powerless and afraid. I want to
know different ways I can incorporate social justice into lessons and projects
especially through art. I want to know what I can do as a teacher to make a
difference in the world through social justice teaching and by being an
advocate for it, and how effective social justice teaching is. I want to know
important steps in curriculum and examples of great social justice programs involving art. I
began searching social justice teaching and found a lot of resources on it! I
was happy to find that there already is a big movement towards it. A few
great resources I found were Teaching Tolerance, Teaching for Change , Teachers for Justice, Using Their Words and Cult of Pedagogy. All of them are resources for teachers, by teachers, about social justice teaching, with various curriculum and resources. I'm eager to continue my search at the library for more books and resources.
Cool! Sounds like you have quite a bit of experience at your disposal and quite a lot of resources. Excited to see concretely how you meld art and social justice and what sorts of projects you come up with; I'm sure there are countless options! I went to a talk last Thursday about school lunches, where they come from, and how the 'average' school lunch system disadvantages students and local growers by favoring pre-packaged, heat-'em-up lunches from large well-connected providers. Additionally, school lunch personnel are generally hired as part-time workers with no health benefits and low pay. I wonder if the idea of the school lunch (something students experience everyday) as a point of social justice might somehow be turned into an art project. Just throwin' out ideas. : )
ReplyDeleteI'm really excited to continue reading about this. Art and social justice have so much potential to meld together. It's also a great way to help students become more informed about the social justice issues that exist in the world and begin to foster engagement and activism.
ReplyDeleteI am fascinated by your ideas and views about teaching social justice. I think it's great how you're using art (something that you're passionate about) to teach the youth about issues that they NEED to know about. I'm excited to continue reading about all this!
ReplyDeleteI would love to see how you can use art to teach about social justice. I think it would be interesting to see you develop a curriculum around it.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned, I am also super interested in social justice, and as an art ed major myself, I am so excited to read more of your thoughts. I think it is super important in this day and age to keep up on these issues and educate yourself and those around you about social issues.
ReplyDeleteI think social justice is an incredibly important topic to explore and incorporate into your teaching. Social justice as a topic on its own is always shifting depending on the population and context you are working in. What may be an issue of social justice to one set of 5th graders (e.g. school uniforms and freedom of expression) may not be as important to a group of 11th graders in a different state or school.
ReplyDeleteGoing forward, you may want to focus your exploration and research on a specific social justice topic and gather various resources from different perspectives on the issue. The example topics you list above are fantastic.
Oh, and another great journal to explore related to social justice issues in education is Rethinking Schools, originally based here in Milwaukee. It frequently publishes work by local, MKE teachers!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.rethinkingschools.org/index.shtml