Integrating Social Justice into the Mandatory Curriculum
February 19, 2010
There are many circumstances that hold teachers back from teaching for social justice, such as test-preparation and meeting the demands of the mandated curricula. One of the most successful ways we have gotten around these restrictions is through using Social Justice Education materials to teach to the standards while still upholding our values as educators.
Leon’s Story by Leon Walter Tillage is a narrative about Leon Walter Tillage’s experiences in Raleigh, North Carolina as a sharecroppers son. His story teaches young readers about institutionalized racism, segregation, the KKK, and marching for peace and equality. As students are learning about these critical issues, they are building reading skills such as empathy, envisionment, and synthesizing. This is the book we used to begin the unit. The students connected with Leon, they felt what he felt, and felt angry when he was done wrong. There was no need to convince them after this read a loud that racism is something that hurts people. The students were able to develop essential reading skills, as well as understand how racism affected people in the south during the early 1900′s.
To help to continue this non-fiction unit we wanted to give the students an understanding of what racism is looks like today. We did this with newspaper articles. One in particular was an article about the Jena 6 featured in IndyKids!. IndyKids! is a radical children’s newspaper that gives students an alternative source for news. This article provided students with knowledge about institutionalized racism that is currently happening in the south today, as well as helped them hone their non-fiction reading skills. Check out their website for all of their publications. www.indykids.net
The next recourse we use to meet the needs of the mandated curricula while still upholding our values as educators is a book called Fire From the Rock by Sharon M. Draper. This is a story about a middle school girl, Sylvia, and her family. Sylvia has been chosen to be one of the few to be the first to integrate into Central High School. This book is not only a wonderful and engaging story that helps students build essential reading skills, but it also teaches the students about how unfair segregation was, and what people did to stop it.
