2 posts tagged “social justice”

The research article that I read was "The 'Building Tasks' of Critical History: Structuring Social Studies for Social Justice" by Wayne Au. It was published in Social Studies Research and Practice in July of this year. In the article, Au looks at two case study lesson plans by social studies teachers who actively seek to raise the consciousness of their students around social justice issues. The author utilizes discourse analysis where people "use language to operationalize certain 'building tasks' in order to express meaning, ideology, values, and other aspects of our identities in a given situation." Au concluded that these lesson plans were quality classroom pedagogical devices due to their service as vehicles for students to critically question social relations historically and in the present-day context. In doing so, he dismissed the claims of some that lesson plans stifle the true learning process by assuming that the planning and executing instruction occurs in some sort of linear fashion to a "predetermined endpoint."

For my assignment in Professor Monroe's EDSE 500 class I decided to read Conscientizacao: The Awakening of Critical Consciousness in Educational Forums by a second year in the program, Dan Doyle. In his focus paper, Doyle discusses educational philosophy as seen through the eyes of three of the most influential theoretical proponents of education for radical social change in the past century--Paulo Freire, Myles Horton, and Saul Alinsky. Through my work with the Phillips Brooks House Association during college and training that I underwent there in community organizing, I am familiar with Freire and Alinsky and have at least heard of Horton and his Highlander educational facility. PBHA truly did live up to its nickname, "the best course at Harvard," for teaching me about these theorists and activists who have been so important to radical educational philosophy and praxis; I hope to follow in their immense footsteps.

In this focus paper, Doyle begins by discussing how Freire, Horton, and Alinsky dedicated their lives to provoke original thought and critical observation in students and citizens that they encountered. The drive towards "personal and social liberation" was something shared by these three individuals who worked towards their goals in dramatically different settings in the favelas of Brazil, urban slums of Chicago, and rural towns of Tennessee. As an ardent supporter of participatory economic systems, education that trains citizens to become actively involved in social justice movements, and the like I appreciated Doyle's writing. It's good to hear that I'm not the only person in the program who seems to appreciate the work of these authors and actively seeks to re-create a learning environment similar to the ones these figures fostered in their day. The Mississippi Teacher Corps deals with one of the most politically, socially, and economically marginalized populations in the country and I feel like we should offer the students we teach much more than just classroom instruction under the "banking" system of education. We need to help facilitate transformation in our students' minds and their material conditions so that our program is no longer necessary in as few years as possible if the purported democracy of the U.S. government is made into a reality.

The strange thing about all of this is that, as far "left" as my political views are, I understand the rationale of those on the "right" who seek to perpetuate the status quo and thus maintain poverty and stagnated educational environments in places like the Mississippi Delta and Jackson. Don't get me wrong--I don't agree with it and I feel that it is racist and classist among many other things (patriarchal, for instance) but I understand the vested class interest among some in not providing students with the intellectual and practical tools necessary to work towards radical social change. I own a poster that has a picture of W.E.B. Du Bois and a quote from him to the effect of educating the Negro in the South has always been a dangerous enterprise due to the yearning for change to one's predicament that it most likely will foster (when executed correctly). This is the reason why educating slaves was outlawed from Texas to Mississippi to Maryland. A knowledgeable and conscious working class is a working class that seeks social transformation--not one that can be dominated on the farm or in the factories, cubicles, or Sonic's of the U.S. today. For these reasons I ask myself why would the "powers that be" seek to educate social groups that have been dominated through various means for hundreds of years and thus competitively challenge their own sons and daughters not only in the workforce but in the very economic and social relations that distinguish the ignorant from learned, White from Black, wealthy and middle-class from working class?

They don't. That's why I feel like these schools we're going to teach at are doing exactly what they're supposed to for the ruling class--maintain the status quo. Of course at every school there are outliers but, by and large, it is anticipated and expected that most of the students we teach will not go to a four-year college, will not live in material/economic conditions dramatically different from their parents, and will DEFINITELY not become social justice crusaders actively engaged in liberatory fights to revolutionize society and make it more equitable for all economically, socially, and politically. To be honest, I could care less about the first option as I feel as though going to college and becoming your run-of-the-mill, middle-class, nine-to-fiver should NOT be the purpose of an education. There is far too much suffering, oppression, and marginalization along the lines of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, etc. for people to simply enter their jobs/careers and feel as though as long as they vote Democrat and are open-minded they are doing their part to change the world for the better. Not at all. Freire, Horton, and Alinsky were operating in different times but those times were not all too different from today and the need for liberatory education and critical reflection that leads to radical action for social change is just as real today as it has ever been.

The issue is I do not feel that public schools will accomplish this goal. As apparatuses of the state, as my roommate Robert Bland enjoys reminding me, these schools do exist to reproduce class--not to liberate minds. It's always interesting to me that Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia is remembered for many things but not for his exhortation of future generations to have a revolution every 20 or so years so that laws and institutions can be radically changed periodically and citizens who are living under a system that they themselves had no say in choosing can live in their own society--not one that has been handed down to them through successively out-of-touch generations. Clearly, the U.S. has not had a political revolution since 1776. What a drought. I feel that, collectively, people need to band together and work towards dramatic social change as it is in their interests. As Freire and others have said, both oppressor and the oppressed are made human through the pursuit and attainment of justice in interpersonal and institutional relationships. I understand that there are myriad inhibitors to the working class developing class consciousness and, eventually, acting on that class consciousness but we must realize that we are the masses. The working class and middle class that work in various sectors of the U.S. economy maintaining the position of the elite are being exploited. Yeah, we in MTC may have nice apartments, cars with gas, and full stomachs but we must realize that we are small parts of a much larger structure that is NOT invested in the education of those we have devoted our lives to (at least for the next two years, though hopefully much, much longer thereafter). As stated above, why should the U.S. government radically change that structure when it has made the U.S. the richest, most dominant country in the world?

I could go on for months about why this system needs to be changed but suffice it to say that Doyle has said it much more concisely than I ever could. On page 5 of his focus paper he writes, "Not only is true democracy strengthened by education and learning, it is then able to meet the demands of this continued re-evaluation and constant change." Sadly, our educational system and the greater social system in the U.S. is not like the Mississippi Teacher Corps, constantly seeking improvement and taking feedback from its members seriously with an eye towards perpetual reform and innovation. As products of MTC, we young, idealistic (to some degree) beginning educators must be the force that pushes for change. More so than teaching social studies, I want to be in public education to have access to the hundreds of minds that will come into my classroom that are molds of clay to be formed. I don't want to be dominant in this formation, however, and I am sure that my students will change me as well so we have some sort of shared educational experience going on. Hopefully, however, I can instill in my students the belief that another world is possible and they can be active participants in the creation of this new world if they so choose. Their options are much broader than working for "X" corporation and just getting by in life or subsisting off of government programs. Through liberatory education, critical thinking, countless hours of organizing, and coordinated action, social and economic justice is an attainable goal for all.