Social Justice

If you look up the definition of Social Justice this is what you get from dictionary.com the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within a society. If you take that definition and apply it to a classroom there should be either no or very few disadvantages found in that classroom. Herbert Kohl discusses in the article Teaching for Social Justice that if one is in the teaching profession be at a school where you can express your ideas. If a school system gives a teacher limited freedom to express herself or himself in a classroom then that school system is not for you. No teacher enjoys teaching out of a textbook. That is boring and tedious. Teachers have to teach towards the curriculum but the curriculum should not consume a teacher to explore new ways of engage students. I liked how the author said not to get wrapped into social justice when you are just trying to figure out teaching in general. A good teacher who cares about all students needs to have confidence in what they are teaching before they can move onto other issues like Social Justice. Teachers need to be an activists for not only the students but for the community to want to improve as well. In his final suggestion he wants teachers to enjoy life and not get so wrapped up in there job. This happens to a lot of people in a lot of professions, people need to enjoy their own life if they want to help make other people lives better.
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/15_02/Just152.shtml

Making Inclusion the Norm

Inclusion is the your typical classroom that all children are expected to attend when they enter school.For some children like those with special needs inclusion may not be the answer. Mainstreaming is an option but as the article states it did not work the hopes were for that children with disabilities to succeed on their own in a typical classroom. Mainstreaming basically says, "We won't change the regular classroom, the curriculum, the teaching, or pay much attention to the social environment, but if you can succeed here, you are allowed to stay." That theological thinking will not work for those kids who need that extra push, or attention help be successful. The whole point of special education,inclusion, and resource rooms are to be available to the students to use them. In my past experiences with all three of these types of room many times the kids went to either two of the rooms for a short period of the day or in a rare occurrence all three rooms have been seen by a particular student. Inclusion should be used when appropriate. I am all for including all types of students in activities but if a student is not going to gain anything from that room setting then you are only hurting the child forcing them to stay. Same works for a student who does not need to be in a resource room setting if they need only to be reminded to keep focus. I always believe to try putting students in an inclusion type setting but if no improvement can be made and the student is only hurting himself or herself then there has to be a better solution to the problem.

http://www.education-world.com/a_issues/chat/chat206.shtml