Self Chosen Article: Teaching and Learning Social Justice 

by Leah Reinhert & Rebecca Ropers-Huilman

http://acpacsje.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/teaching-and-learning-social-justice-by-leah-reinert-rebecca-ropers-huilman/

The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you can alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change the world. – James Baldwin 

Social justice is "justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society.

When we effectively teach social justice according to Reinhaert and Ropers we are teaching students to change the world and this why it is so important to teach students social justice. The role education is to create citizens and members of society that can create change and form beneficial relationships to help the larger society as a whole. 

The hard part about teaching and learning from all standpoints is the ability to engage this learning and teach skills with good information to help individuals grow. Grow to help avoid or “resist” oppression in addition to problem solve and better our society. If it is oppression that limits us, then we must develop skills and knowledge to avoid and overcome oppression that our students may face later on in society. 

By avoiding oppression as they speak on, we must then educate our students on what oppression is and how it happens in addition to the solutions involved in avoidance and overcoming. These could be called “social justice skills” I suppose. 

The authors of the article suggest and emphasize that when teaching these concepts and skills, important themes to focus on include:

1. Stressing the importance of reflexivity or accountability for oneself… CONATIVE SKILLS

Reflexivity is so important when teaching social justice because it teaches on perspectives of not only ourselves but others as well. It teaches to interactions and communication with others which is an important aspect of social justice. We all have our own identities and need to be mindful of others identities just the same. Some of us may be more privileged than others and when dealing with oppression we need to see all perspectives including our own respectively and take into consideration all points of view.

2. Being mindful in our vulnerability… Knowing our strengths and weaknesses and working around or with them. Knowing where our society is vulnerable is important for our students to see and learn about to help promote change and help establish growth in these areas through being mindful and aware. 

“Some strategies for being mindfully vulnerable in an effort to teach and learn social justice include: putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations, experiences, or environments to enlarge our boundaries of lived experience; putting a voice to our experiences when we have faced or viewed injustice; and being reflective and cognizant when we encounter privilege and using that awareness to further education on social justice.” 

In other words, if I understand correctly, teaching students to face things that make them vulnerable, voicing their opinions, and DISCUSSING issues currently spinning in our society, we are teaching them how to address vulnerability responsibly and respectfully. In doing this we would need to promote fully engaged DISCUSSION between our students.

3. The necessity of reciprocity… sharing knowledge, skills, or resources with others for mutual benefit or in other words cooperative learning, working with others to achieve success. 

Again this can go along with discussions had in the classroom and being mindful of everyone and their perspectives… In teaching students to be mindful of themselves and others in their opinions, views, and discussions we are essentially developing our students into more open minded and flexible citizens. 

We as a society are so closed minded and instead of working together and resection opinions and the perspectives of others within our societies we fight - - - morally, religiously, economically, politically and in many other ways… Changing these closed minded ways and developing citizens that are socially just in their thinking will help to alleviate some of this conflict and help build a society where we all work and grow together using each others strengths in a “reciprocative” manner to grow as a society. Social justice being taught to better our future socially with citizens who understand how to be socially just.