How to Teach Social Justice Topics

 Hi everyone,

During my last block, I kept thinking about how I was going to incorporate social justice in my math courses. This was very challenging. Even when we had department meetings, a teacher brought up an activity on homelessness and as a group, the teachers said they were afraid of doing it, in case they triggered a student.

This was towards the end of my block, so I thought I would dedicate this week's blog post to doing some research on how we can overcome the fear of teaching social justice, but also how can we go about it in a way where we aren't afraid of triggering students. 

In this article, the author describes some interesting ideas for teaching social justice topics in your classroom. 

• Create a classroom community of conscience (ensure every students feels like their ideas and opinions are valued)
• Help students see each others as co-learners
• Include diverse experiences and backgrounds in the materials you choose for your class
• Show students how they can act upon the issues that they see
  
  

The next article that I found presents the idea of ensuring that students are given a "trigger warning". This is when the facilitator/teacher lets students know that if they need to leave the room at any given point, then they can. Students are human, they have many different backgrounds, and many different lived experiences. I believe that this will help students know what is coming, and will prepare them. By letting them know it's okay to take a break from difficult topics. 

When reading this article, I was also thinking, it might be a good idea to build in breaks when discussing difficult topics. To do this, I could have red/green cards on my student's desks, so if they are not doing well they can subtly turn over their card to indicate they need a break. I think this is important when discussing topics that can be difficult or triggering. 

                                                 

Extend! 

If you would like to do some further reading on this topic, I have found a guide that is a step by step process on teaching social justice, and what you as an educator can do in your classroom to ensure these important conversations are had effectively. 

All in all, I think this is an important topic, that is going to take me some time learn and practice. As I continue to research and try different things, I will update this blog!

Until next time,

-Sydney