Educators are aware of 21st-century skills required for students such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, technology literacy, flexibility, leadership, and social skills. However, what about 21st-century skills educators must possess?
Often this school of thought is overshadowed by the concentrated focus on student learning. Current educators need to develop, practice, and implement skills like social justice pedagogy, intersectionality, culturally responsive teaching, and implicit bias. Developing new skills will take time and mental reconfiguration of what teaching has become in the 21st century, but where to begin? Social justice would be a great starting point.
Social justice can be defined as seeing students for who they are and where they come from, as well as providing each student with an equitable distribution of educational supports or resources that allow the student to feel safe and secure. At times it may seem easier to emphasize what social justice is not.
An example of what it’s not is the concept of, “Respect is Earned.” Educators must dispel the idea that, if a student works hard, they will succeed at anything they try to do. To be honest, this doesn’t hold true for everyone because of social injustice in education. In order to foster equity among one another, all must enter the classroom, regardless of life experience, social-economic status, gender or age equally.
Here are some steps educators can take that will positively impact their students and classrooms. The first step an educator can take is being purposely conscious of the inequalities in their classroom. This may appear in the curriculum material or resources provided to facilitate education in your classroom.
Second step, it is critical to self-analyze for any unconscious bias that may hinder your ability to provide an equitable classroom environment. There are several online confidential resources that can help in testing yourself for hidden biases.
Acknowledging personal biases can be difficult to do. It is important to remember that discovering and identifying hidden biases doesn’t label you as a person who is being prejudice, stereotyping or discriminating. Taking a survey to identify these biases should be viewed through the lens of personal professional development. As educators, we are constantly pursuing how to improve our teaching abilities and how to better serve our students. After following this process, we need to be willing to change.
Third step, educate yourself. You may find the biggest obstacle is increasing your knowledge on the topic of social justice. Doing research will be necessary and here are some helpful links to aid in this endeavor.
Social Justice Belongs In Our Schools by Sydney Chaffee, TEDx Talks
Social Justice…In a Cookie by CM Hall, TEDx Talks
Fourth step, once you have identified barriers to social justice in your classroom, it’s time to formulate a plan. It is important to understand that providing social justice, as a 21st century skill, is here to stay. It can no longer be viewed as optional. The classroom can be the start of ending generational inequality for students. There isn’t a specific formula that can be followed or found. This will require understanding and embracing the unique intersectionality of your classroom demographics. In doing so, an educator will possess the tools to develop such a plan.
The final step is to analyze core content in regard to your specific classroom demographic. Keep these demographics in mind when designing new frameworks that focus on equity and inclusivity.
Strengthening skills in the realm of social justice isn’t a perfect science. It is guaranteed that mistakes will be made, frustration will occur, and enduring commitment to equality may never be perfect. Remember to provide grace when it is needed for your students and yourself as you embark on this exciting new change.
I completely agree on your assessment of me not specifically addressing the marginalized communities you listed. I believe that social justice isn’t just specific to gender or race. However, they do fall under the umbrella of social justice. We must not forget inequality amongst students with disabilities, socio-economic status or students from non-traditional family home lives. I’m sure there are others I haven’t included in this example, but it doesn’t mean they don’t exist or are less important. I don’t believe that the groups you mentioned have a monopoly on the term social justice. As educators we must try to recognize our own unconscious biases towards other marginalized groups who are experiencing inequality in their education. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and helping continue great conversation on the topic.
I think Michael’s comment and Swan’s response bring up an important reality of social justice conversations, and I’m not sure the most appropriate way to write this so I apologize if this lands wrong: the racial justice conversation can’t only be lead by teachers of color, the LGBTQ+ justice conversation can’t only be led by LGBTQ+ teachers, and so on. I sit here as a middle class white cis male… People like me need to also be the ones starting these conversations, because as wrong as it is, Power looks like me and often carries those deep implicit biases that will lead Power to (unjustifiably) listen to people like me a little more closely. People like me need to be the ones pointing out that social justice in our school systems is all the things Swan mentioned, all the things Michael mentioned, AND our history of racist institutions is the elephant in the room we can’t keep avoiding since schools are a top institution on that list. Also, people like me need to know when to shut up and pass the mic… we are in the positions of privilege to start the conversation, so we need to use that privilege to kick open the door and then bring those marginalized voices to center stage… and when we see marginalized voices speaking up we need to use our privilege not just to add our two cents (I know I’m doing that right now) but instead to raise their platform and turn their volume up.
Mark,
Those are certainly conversations we’re having in education right now. It’s how we look at and define systems- K-12 public schools, classrooms, districts, and even the various levels of the union.
We just need to be listening, above all else. Including students, families, and communities to the table. Allies and accomplices are critical, especially in working through conversations in places and with people who educators of color can’t reach.
As the parent of color of teens in various places along the LGBTQ spectrum, I can and do appreciate Swan’s response. I certainly want to make sure children are cared for and about. But in terms of social justice, we must make race the central component of the discussion. It encompasses all of the other characteristics we discuss in education.
I’m looking forward to continuing the discussion.
-Michael
Mark,
Fantastic! Kick those doors wide open because at every corner I turn doors keep getting slammed shut in my face. It gets awfully tiring when you find yourself in places where you are the only person willing to speak on such matters. It is especially exhausting when many have attitudes of, “You should feel fortunate to even be sitting at the table.” WHY is this always the perception of white privilege?
Hi Swan,
Sorry for the delay in my response. I’ve had some interactions that reminded me of your response over the last couple of weeks.
I appreciate the intent of your reply. I’m going to politely disagree.
Here’s why: colorblind social justice is ultimately shortsighted. Race intersects all categories, and across all categories inequity (graduation rates, discipline rates, etc.) rates highest when any student characteristic (students with disabilities, socio-economic status or students from non-traditional family home lives) intersects race.
I know that discussions around race are hard to have- some communities have no to very little students of color. I’m not suggesting this is true of yours. And wanting to be inclusive of all students is nice…. but it sounds eerily like “all students matter”.
Certainly we know they do. But some students feel the hit of inequity and injustice more than others.
A perspective to consider.
-Michael
Michael,
Completely true! A person’s race definitely magnifies injustices and/or inequalities as compared to students with disabilities, socio-economic status or students from non-traditional family home lives who are white. Students of color will always have more strikes against them regardless of extra marginalized categories they may fall into or societal unconscious biases placed upon them they have to overcome. Either way, a strike is a strike and anyone in this unvoluntary situation is already losing.
I don’t believe that social justice shouldn’t address the inequality of race. It truly will be addressed in a future blog because it personally affects me. However, I don’t want to perpetuate the strike-throwing towards other marginalized communities just because they are white. Doing so fuels this negative cycle and inhibits the conversation.
I appreciate your discourse because it is keeping the conversation alive. I encourage you to respond to other concerns you have on social justice and race because my hope is to encompass as many perspectives in future blogs in order to keep the conversation going.
Thank you.
-Swan
I read this briefly yesterday and something was bugging me. I went back to it today and actually read it. It made perfect sense to me tonight:
Not once in writing about social justice in education does the author mention race.
No Black kids. No Latinx kids. No Native kids, Pacific Islander, or Asian kids.
Not accessing knowledge of our Black educators. Not of our Latinx educators. Not of our Native educators, Pacific Islander, or Asian educators.
Not once in writing about social justice in education does the author mention gender or sexual identity.
No transgender kids. No nonbinary kids. No agender, asexual, pansexual, or lesbian kids.
Not accessing knowledge of our transgender educators. Not of our nonbinary educators. Not of our agender, asexual, pansexual, or lesbian educators.
Just what is social justice about to this author? I can’t think of a more social justice-blind article to write than this.
great article on social justice, social justice” is misunderstood by too many people now a days
Agreed and that is why many people shy away from the topic. The result of this or others taking on misconceptions of the simple definition only results in the increase of inequitable education for our future generations. Thank you for sharing your perspective.
Great steps for us as educators… honestly looking at self, looking at system, are the only ways to battle injustice.
I find that the term “social justice” is misunderstood by too many. It gets conflated with political movements (socialism or redistribution) or with keyboard/twitter-activism rather than in-real-life action. Social justice, as you point out, is about acknowledging that injustices are often perpetrated by systems (and mindsets within systems) rather than through overt abuse of the law. I’ve been lucky to teach a course titled “Literature and Social Justice” for the past three years, and my own understanding of the concept has evolved tremendously in the process…and I hope my classroom (even in my other classes besides the SJ class) is a better place to learn as a result.
You are correct in emphasizing how social justice in the educational system is often clouded by other societal agendas. Thank you for your experienced insight.