Standard 1

Standard 1: Advocacy for Social Justice

Educators who embrace a social justice perspective are attentive to inequalities associated with race, social class, gender, language, and other social categories.  They consciously look for alternatives to established educational practices that support the learning, development, and academic achievement of children whose backgrounds place them outside of the dominant culture.  They employ multicultural, anti-racist, anti-bias educational practices that foster deep engagement in learning and high academic achievement among all of the nation’s children.

No matter age, gender, race, social class, language or any other social category, all children deserve the right to education. Education should be the same for all students and every student should have equal opportunities to learn. Educators should be supportive and encouraging of learning inside their classroom. The classroom should be a place where every culture is embraced. Students should feel welcomed no matter their background and be able to succeed. 

Throughout my four year and after learning about different minority groups, I have wondered why there isn’t more change. Beverly Tatum, author of Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria says in her book “many adults do not know how to respond when children make race-related observations” (Tatum, 2003, p. 36). In many classrooms and in society, it is difficult for adults to talk to children about race. Race shouldn’t be something that is ignored and not talked about but rather embraced so we can learn more about other people. 

In order for a classroom to be multicultural, teachers need to allow students to share their  cultures inside the classroom. According to Jeanne Brady, author of Schooling Young Children, “a teacher of multiculturalism affirms students experiences by giving students the opportunity to ‘come to voice’ from their own histories” (Brady, 1995,p.87). Teachers should allow students to share their stories and bring their culture to class. When students bring in food, music, or stories from their culture, it teaches students more about it. This in turn allows children to be more accepting of all students. 

I started to become an advocate for social justice during my sophomore year of college while taking racial and cultural identities. Before this class, race and gender differences really never crossed my mind. I also never stopped to wonder if students who are part of a lower socioeconomic class got the same education as those who didn’t. Through racial and cultural identities I learned so much about advocating so every gets the same treatment. Since then, it has become my goal to help close the educational gap and allow all students to receive the same education. In appendix 1A is my final racial and cultural identities paper where I discuss my thoughts at the beginning of the year and how much they have changed. 

Both my practicum and pre-practicum sites had a very diverse group of students. In my fourth grade pre-practicum site, we noticed that the students began to form certain groups of friends. All the english language learner were together, the girls divided into two groups one being mostly white girls and the other being the minority, the boys divided up by what sports they played. This began to create tension inside the classroom and something needed to be done. We began reading books from all different cultures and learning about where people were from. One of the books we read was Pride of Puerto Rico, the life of Roberto Clemente written by Paul Robert Walker. This book really brought the class together because they learned to use everyone’s knowledge. In order to understand the book, the students who played baseball or softball needed to explain the game. The students who could speak Spanish helped other children pronounce words. The students from Puerto Rico helped explain the geography of where it is and what it is like on the island. By all the children helping each other understand the story it ended up being a very popular book. It was also something for all the students to talk about no matter their background.  In appendix 1B is the description of Pride of Puerto Rico, The life of Roberto Clemente from Google Books. 

All students should be able to receive the same education no matter what their background is. Students should also be treated the same way inside the classroom no matter their gender, race, disability, socioeconomic class, or language. By having diversity inside the classroom and teaching students about all types of people, the classroom will be a more welcoming place for everyone. 

References 

Tatum, B. D. (2003). "Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?": and other conversations about race. New York: Basic Books.

Brady, J. (1995). Schooling young children a feminist pedagogy for liberatory learning. Albany: State University of New York Press.