Social Justice in Education:

Preparing Teachers for Diversity

Sonia Nieto

National-Louis UniversityChicago, IL

September 1, 2009

Why does preparing teachers for diversity matter?

• a civic responsibility• a moral responsibility• the future of public education is at stake• the sociopolitical context demands it

”Large numbers of new teachers describe themselves as distinctly underprepared for the challenges of dealing with the ethnic and racial diversity that they find in the classroom at a time when many schools have increasingly varied populations.”National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, and Public Agenda, 2008

Questions to Consider• Why does preparing teachers for diversity matter?• What is social justice in education?• What can schools of education and higher education do

to create a new vision for teacher education? • What kinds of dispositions and abilities do teachers need

to teach in today’s public schools, particularly in urban schools which are largely Hispanic and African American, and how can schools and colleges of education help them develop these dispositions?

• What can we do to change current practices in our teacher education programs to reflect the ideals of diversity and social justice?

It matters because, in spite of it all, good teaching can help…

“what teachers know and do is one of the most important influences on what students learn”

(National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 1996)

CHANGING SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES OF EDUCATION

Mission statement Goals and objectives Programs Curriculum Pedagogy Prepracticum and practicum placements Other experiences Recruitment

of students of faculty

What is the role of higher education?

• Promoting teaching as a career within the academy• Providing more enriching course work, both in the arts and

sciences and in education• Creating rigorous criteria for entering the profession - but not

just GPAs or passing scores on certification tests• Vigorously recruiting underrepresented populations, both faculty

and students Partnering with community colleges Partnering with urban schools

To recruit students For professional development

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF TEACHER EDUCATION?

• To help prospective teachers learn more about the students they teach and the contexts in which they live

• To create a climate in which prospective teachers become critical thinkers• To help them understand that teaching is more than a job but different from missionary work• To help them question and confront their assumptions and biases• To help them learn to negotiate differences • To provide experiences so they learn to speak other languages and learn about cultures

other than their own• To reject simplistic solutions to complex problems• To question “best practices”• To teach them to be curious, active, humble, and courageous• To prepare them to be social activists in education

But what is social justice in education?And do your programs deliver?

Everybody’s for it…

Social justice in education Providing all students with the resources necessary to learn to their full potential

Material resources: books, curriculum, financial support, and so on; Emotional resources: a belief in their ability and worth; care; high expectations and rigorous demands; the necessary social and cultural capital to negotiate the world;

Drawing on the resources, talents, and strengths that students bring to their education

Creating a learning environment that promotes critical thinking and agency for social change

Beginning the conversation among faculty and students

Creating a “safe” but not “comfortable” space

Engaging in “dangerous discourse” Sharing experiences through

collaborative readings, research, program planning

• Social justice as advocacy

• Social justice as sociocultural mediation

• Social justice as solidarity

Social Justice as AdvocacyAmbrizeth lima

Teaching is about power. That is why it must also be about social justice.

I teach because I believe that young people have rights, including the right to their identities and their languages… This has meant that I’ve had to engage in many struggles to retain bilingual education {a right that was eradicated in 2002 when the voters of Massachusetts supported the elimination of bilingual education through a ballot initiative)…

Social justice as Sociocultural mediation

Mary Ginley

I'm a White, middle-class woman who grew up in a White, middle-class neighborhood and went to a White middle-class college. I know if I was really going to teach today’s kids, I had a lot to learn…

Our responsibility is to meet them where they are and take them someplace else, and have them carry who they are along with them.

Social justice as solidarity

• Solidarity as high expectations• Solidarity as trust• Solidarity as humility• Solidarity as a deep connection with students’

identities

Solidarity as high expectations

“I know it’s easy to sit back and listen to the gossip in schools. ‘These kids can’t learn,’ is what you hear. The truth is they can and do. We have to see and believe.”

Sandra Jenoure

Solidarity as trust

“I begin to see returns on my trust when a student marked absent appears in the doorway at 10:23 with a sheepish grin. In her hand, she carries a note from the hospital where she spent the night…”

Seth Peterson

solidarity as humility

Mary Cowhey

At my undergraduate college, I was in the majority. That was mostly who was in the program: White women who were native speakers of English. But in the BEM Summer Program, out of 30 students, there were a handful of native English speakers…

Coming out of the closet as a Spanish speaker: Bill DunnIn my work, I often act as a bridge between different cultures. Part of my evolution as a teacher has been in self defense: I have learned to make my life easier by making life easier for my students; but another, greater part of my experience has

been a deep curiosity and yearning to understand the lives of my students. In my struggle to understand, I have learned not only a great deal about my students, but also about myself…

Solidarity as a deep connection with students’ identities

Learning from teachers with a social justice orientation

• It takes more than current reforms that emphasize test scores and bureaucratic “fixes”

• Go beyond templates, rubrics, and prepackaged curricula

• Question “best practices” and “one-size-fits-all” solutions

• Understand that teaching is above all about relationships

“It is impossible to talk of respect for students, for the dignity that is in the process of coming to be, for the identities that are in the process of construction, without taking into consideration the conditions in which they are living and the importance of the knowledge derived from life experience, which they bring with them to school. I can in no way underestimate such knowledge. Or what is worse, ridicule it.”

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom, 1998