Optional Social Justice Lesson Plan Assignment

Develop a social justice lesson that brings together the teaching of subject matter through a

social justice context aligned with Hackman and/or Agrawal’s approaches to social justice

education and including social action tools that promote hope and possibility. The lesson will be

aligned with recent theories of learning and will demonstrate ways of addressing diverse student

needs for learning the intended content and processes.

The completed assignment will include the following sections:

I. A description of the students with whom this social justice lesson might be used (can be hypothetical).

II. Content progression: Indicate the content area and the specific topic in that content area of the lesson along with a discussion of how this topic fits into the K-12 curriculum in the

identified content area. Explain the progressions of concepts and procedures to be learned

along the K-12 continuum that are aligned with the topic of the lesson, identifying

elementary, middle school, and high school content, procedures and practices and State

Standards in the area.

III. Lesson plan clearly describing each of the following:

(1) Overarching (Long-term) Affective and Practice/Process Goal(s) (at least one of each)

Affective—emotions, feelings, values. Examples:

Ex. 1 Value alternate points of view and be able to look at situations and events from others’

points of view and engage in action to ameliorate injustices from your own or other’s points of

view.

Ex. 2 Become motivated to make a positive difference in the lives of others through an

outstretched hand offering help, or a nonviolent strategy promoting a solution to a problem,

conflict, or injustice.

(2) Specific Florida Standards in the Subject Area/Content (or CCSS if not in Florida) and

Lesson Objectives: Standards and specific learning objectives for content the students will

learn within the particular lesson;

(3) Approx. time (e.g., 50 mins., 1hr 30 mins. block period or two 45/50 min. periods,

etc.depending on setting and content of lesson);

(4) Materials: Delineate materials and resources needed to effectively complete lesson;

(5) Procedures: Begin with some captivating/motivating starter to interest the students in the

lesson (e.g., a problem/question to draw interest; a short video; etc.). Procedures for the

lesson (including specific statements of what the students will do and might say/ask and

statements of what the teacher will do or ask and say)—the procedures as numbered steps,

indicating what the teacher does and says and what the students are to do and might say, in

the lesson is one clear way to layout the procedures; The procedures include social action

tools that promote hope and possibility.

(6) Assessment: Discuss how to assess student learning in the particular lesson—can be informal

or formal.

(7) Accommodations: Suggested special accommodations that may be made for students with

learning disabilities, physical disabilities or English Language Learners (ELLs) (as might be

appropriate for the particular lesson).

(8) Handouts: Any worksheets or scanned copies of materials needed for the lesson; If using a

website with the class, please include the website within the procedures for the lesson or

here, as appropriate.

IV. Bibliography of actual or potential resources for the lesson.

V. Reflection of how this lesson is aligned with recent theories of learning, how it is aligned

with and incorporates Hackman and/or Agrawal’s approaches to social justice education for

teaching and learning, how it incorporates tools for social action, and how it is appropriate

with respect to the description of the students described in section I above.

Social Justice Lesson Plan Rubric

Total Points: 18

Category Mastery (3 pts)

Acceptable (2

pts) Limited

(1 pt)

Content Progression

across K-12

Description and

discussion of content progression accurately and explicitly situates the topic/content of the lesson across elementary, middle school and high school curriculum and related state standards.

Description and

discussion of content progression accurately and somewhat explicitly situates the topic/content

of the lesson across

elementary, middle

school and high school

curriculum and related

state standards.

Description and

discussion of content progression lacks some accuracy or explicitness in situating the

topic/content of the

lesson across

elementary, middle

school and high school

curriculum and related

state standards.

Overarching

(Longterm) Goals

(Affective and Practice/Process), FL Standards or CCSS

(standards) & Instructional Objectives for Lesson and Intended Activities

Overarching (Longterm)

Goals (Affective and

Practice/Process),

instructional objectives,

and FL Standards or

CCSS are specifically

identified and clearly

stated and directly

Overarching goals,

instructional objectives,

and FL standards or

CCSS are stated and

somewhat represent the

expected learning as a

result of the lesson,

including intended

Overarching goals,

instructional objectives,

and FL Standards or

CCSS are not

appropriately stated or

do not appropriately

represent the expected

learning as a result of

represent the learning

expected as a result of

the lesson, including

intended activities and

social justice approach.

activities and social

justice approach.

the lesson, including

intended activities and

social justice approach.

Aligned with recent

Learning Theories and Accommodations

Appropriate for Diverse

Student Learning

All instructional

strategies, procedures,

indicating what teacher

does and says and what

students might likely do

and say, and activities

including tools for social

action are well

organized and clearly

aligned with recent

learning theories,

research, and

documented best

practice appropriate for

the learning of diverse

students. Lesson

includes appropriate

accommodations for

diverse student learning.

Most instructional strategies, procedures, indicating what teacher does and says and what students might likely do and say, and activities including tools for

social action are somewhat organized and aligned with recent learning theories, research, and documented best practice appropriate for the learning of diverse students. Lesson includes somewhat appropriate

accommodations for diverse student learning.

Instructional strategies,

procedures, indicating

what teacher does and

says and what students

might likely do and say,

and activities including

tools for social action are

aligned in limited ways

with recent learning

theories, research, and

documented best

practice appropriate for

the learning of diverse

students. Lesson lacks

appropriate

accommodations for

diverse student learning.

Content in Lessons The content in lessons and related activities is accurate and promotes coherent understanding and learning of the content. All handouts are included and materials list is

complete. No errors with

respect to content in

lesson and related

materials.

The content in lessons

and related activities is

mostly accurate and

promotes a somewhat

coherent understanding

and learning of the

content. All or most

handouts are included

and materials list is

somewhat complete or

made few, unsubstantive

errors with respect to

content in lesson and

related materials.

The content in lessons and related activities is accurate with a few errors and lacks appropriate coherence for the development of understanding and

learning of the content. Handouts are incomplete and materials list is somewhat lacking or made some errors or a central substantive error with respect to content in lesson and related materials.

Social Justice Education

Perspective in Lesson

Instructional activities

and related reflection on

lesson plan are clearly

aligned with and

demonstrate a strong

understanding of social

justice education in

teaching and learning and

are appropriate for

intended students

described in submission.

Instructional activities and related reflection on lesson plan are mostly aligned with or

demonstrate a satisfactory level of understanding of social justice education in teaching and learning and are satisfactorily appropriate for intended students described in submission.

Instructional activities

and related reflection on

lesson plan lack some

alignment with or lack

understanding of social

justice education in

teaching and learning or

lack appropriateness for

intended students

described in submission.

Communication and

coherence among

assignment, lesson plan,

and reflection

Written materials are

well-organized and

grammatically accurate.

Materials demonstrate a

clear coherence in

research, planning and

reflection.

Written materials are somewhat appropriately organized and grammatically accurate with few errors. Materials demonstrate some appropriate coherence in research, planning or reflection.

Written materials are

somewhat appropriately

organized and

grammatically accurate

with few errors.

Materials demonstrate

some appropriate

coherence in research,

planning or reflection.

From Ideal to Practice and Back Again: Beginning Teachers Teaching for Social Justice

Ruchi Agarwal 1, Shira Epstein 2, Rachel Oppenheim 3 , Celia Oyler 3 , and Debbie Sonu4

Abstract

The five authors of this article designed a multicase study to follow recent graduates

Journal of Teacher Education 61(3) 237-2◄ 7 © 20 IO American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education Reprints and permission: http://www. sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0022◄87 I0935 ◄52 I http://jte.sagepub.com

(l)SAGE

of an elementary preservice teacher education program into their beginning teach ing placements and exp lore the ways in which they enacted social justice c urricula. The a uthors highlight the stories of three beginning teachers, honoring the plurality o f their conceptions of social justice teaching and the resiliency they exhibited in translating social justice ideals into viable pedagogy. They also discuss the strugg les the teachers faced when enacting socia l justice curricula and the tenuous connection they perceived between thei r conceptions and their practices. The authors emphasize that such struggles are inevitable and end the article with recommendations for ways in wh ich teacher educators can prepare beginning teachers for the uncertain journey of teaching for social justice.

Keyword s

social justice, teacher education, teacher reflection, curriculum

Introduction Many teacher education programs across the United States express co1n1nitments to social justice and accordingly attract prospective teachers who seek to work for social change. These social justice commitments are certainly broad and diffuse but stem in no small part from the structural inequal­ ities in our society that are reflected in- and perpetuated by-our schools. We know, for instance, that students in low-income communities are more likely to receive fewer resources and a qualitatively substandard education compared to their middle-class counterparts (Ferguson, 2000; Kozol, 1991; Rothstein, 2004). So too, students of color are often denied adequate educational resources, are overrepresented within special education contexts, and are subject to harsher forms ofpunish1nent than their White peers (Losen & Orfield, 2002; Mukherjee, 2007; Oakes, Wells, Jones, & Datnow, 1997). Of course, these are not new trends, as U.S. schools have historically failed to adequately serve students outside the White, English-speaking, middle-class, nondisabled, main­ stream culture (Zollers, Albert, & Cochran-Smith, 2000). To combat such inequalities, social justice is emphasized as an integral part of many teacher education curricula.

When seeking to transform inequities inherent in society and expressed so sharply in schools, classroom teachers can be understood as "the 1nost essential element [as] they have the ultin1ate responsibility to navigate the curriculum and instruction with their students" (Lalas, 2007, p. 19). Conse­ quently, we, as teacher educators, feel the charge of this

development

responsibility, both in our university-based curriculum design and in our research on the consequences of our justice-oriented teacher education with preservice teachers. To that end, we developed a 1nulticase study of recent graduates of our ele- 1nenta1y preservice program. We explored with these beginning teachers their classroom enact111ents of social justice-oriented curriculum to investigate ways that our university curricula might better prepare teachers for the realities of teaching for social justice within our current public school system. This article discusses our graduates' conceptions of teaching for social justice , their curricular enactments, and their reflec­ tions. Although we were insistent that our classroom-based data collection with beginning teachers be respectful and none­ valuative, we use our findings to highlight and critically analyze some of the important possibilities and challenges we face in our teacher education work when preparing teachers to advo­ cate for social change through their pedagogy. Our work was inspired by our understanding that a commitment to social

1University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 2City College of New York, NY 3Teachers College, New York, NY

•Hunter College, City University of New York, NY

Co rres po nding Aut ho r: Rachel Oppenheim , Teachers College, 525 W. I 20th St., New York ,

NY 10027 Email: rlo2 I O [email protected]

238 Journal of Teacher Education 61 (3)

justice teacher education 111ust be partnered with a con1111it­ ment to self-study and self-reflection. Thus, this work is born from a position of self-criticism and critique that undergirds various social 111ovements (Hale, 1991 ).

We begin the article by fran1ing our work in relation to the literature on beginning teachers and teaching for social jus­ tice. Next, we describe our 111ethod of study. This is followed by three cases, each of which highlights a different begin­ ning teacher and her conceptions and enactments of social justice education. The cases illustrate son1e of the difficulties beginning teachers face when seeking to enact social justice curricula and teach in a way that reflects their ideals. 1n spite of these struggles, these cases also reveal the potential that many new teachers have to teach toward justice curricula, even as they doubt their own ability to do so. We conclude with a set of recommendations for ourselves and other teacher educators who are dedicated to supporting new teachers in creating socially just curricula.

Framing and Researching Social Justice Teacher Education The phrase social justi ce has proliferated in teacher educa­ tion in recent years and is an u111brellaten11 enco111passing a large range of practices and perspectives (Adams, Bell, & Griffin, 2006). These highlight the i111portanceof multiple concepts, including but not limited to: building classroom communities of dialogue across and with difference (Sapon­ Shevin, 1999), critical multicultural and antibias education (Derman-Sparks & Ramsey, 2006; Schniedewind & David­ son, 2006; Sleeter, 2005), culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1994), culturally responsive and compe­ tent teachers (Irvine, 2003), antiracist teaching (Berlak & Moyenda, 200 I), equity pedagogy (Banks & Banks, 1995), anti-oppressive teacher education (Kumashiro, 2004), dis­ ability rights (Linton, I 998), ableism (Hehir, 2002), and access to academics for students with disabilities (Kluth, Straut, & Biklen, 2003). There is an increasing nu111ber of books that are designed specifically for social justice~riented teacher education building on the missions of teaching for social change (Darling-Hammond, French, & Garcia-Lopez, 2002; Oakes & Lipton, 2007), teaching and learning in a diverse world (Nieto, 2005; Ramsey, 2004), and critical, social justice teacher education (Cochran-Smith, 2004; Sleeter, 2005; Soohoo, 2006; Wade, 2007).

Clearly, the idea of teaching for social justice can be related to a range of different practices and values. Although the ope­ nness of this ten11 offers teachers 111any entry points into the endeavor of social justice teaching, it also poses problems for teachers and teacher educators. Teachers can feel over­ vheh11ed by the expectation that they 111ust undo a long list of discriminatory social structures if they are to fully teach for social justice. Teaching for social justice can be seen as an unattainable idea, not linked to particular classroon1-based

practices. Or because it is an un1brella tern1, any teacher 111ay be able to claim that she is teaching for social justice after enacting certain elements of the above practices. For exam­ ple, a teacher can explain that she is teaching for social justice if she allows for conversations about cun·ent events, noting that she is enacting culturally relevant pedagogy.

Given these proble111s, we want to be clear about what we see as the key markers of teaching for social justice. Educa­ tors who teach for social justice (a) enact curricula that integrate 1nultiple perspectives, question do111inant Western narratives, and are inclusive of the racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity in No11h A111erica; (b) support students to develop a critical consciousness of the injustices that characterize our society; and (c) scaffold opportunities for students to be active partici­ pants in a democracy, skilled in fon11s of civic engagement and deliberative discussion. These practices 111ay challenge and alter an educational system that is not adequately serving large numbers of children, particularly poor children, chil­ dren of color, and children with disabilities.

This vision of social justice teaching reflects an understa­ nding that teachers can work to address and ameliorate systemic inequities with their students. We draw from the knowledge that "individual experience n1ay be shaped by issues of oppression" (McDonald, 2007, p. 2076), placing the lives of students into a sociohistorical educational landscape charac­ terized by trends of inequity. Moving beyond teaching tolerance or appreciating diversity, we want teachers to grad­ uate from our teacher education program with not only knowledge about how racism, sexism, ableism, heterosex­ ism, nationalis111, and linguistic privilege operate in schools and society but also the skills for interrogating how these fon11s of oppression are commonly expressed in school prac­ tices and in the curriculum. This perspective assun1es that classroorns are too often sites of cultural and social repro­ duction and that they must be examined carefully for the ways that they produce and perpetuate injustice. Ultimately, we resonate with a social reconstructionist multicultural approach to schooling (Sleeter, I 993). From this approach, teachers work to situate pedagogical practices within analyses of structural inequality and prepare their students to underst­ and injustice on this level.

Teacher educators can e1nphasize the i111portance of social reconstructionist approaches to social justice education and assist preservice teachers in enacting related teaching prac­ tices in their own classrooms. Our program begins with critical autobiographical analysis, which asks preservice teachers to reflect on their identities and social locations to critique the implicit values, long-held assumptions, and biases that under­ lie their ways of understanding children, con1munities, and knowledge (Genor & Goodwin, 2005). Along with this self­ reflection, our teacher education program includes coursework, literature, and assignments designed to explore issues of power, oppression, equity, and social change. Finally, our preservice teachers are asked to design curricula and lesson plans that

Agarwal et al. 239

integrate marginalized knowledge, allow for civic participa­ tion, and provoke students to question discriminatory social norms. Such teaching is, of course, never neutral, and profes­ sors and instructors in the progran1 do not shy away fron1 sharing perspectives with their students, actively disagreeing publicly with each other and also encouraging students to constantly explore the possible effects of their own beliefs on their classroom pedagogy.

Once preservice teachers leave their university programs and enter their own classrooms, their co1nmit111ents some­ times collide with the realities of being novice teachers in a harrowing and unforgiving school system. Authors reveal a range of dilenunas these novices may confront in their day­ to-day practices, describing challenges in areas such as curriculurn, lesson planning, assessn1ent, n1anage1nent, tin1e, and school culture (Feiman-Nernser, 2003; Oakes & Lipton, 2007). The current age of standardization and accountability significantly increases the demands and pressures for teachers in the classroom. Given these obstacles, teaching for social justice can in particular be a daunting and cornplex endeavor for new educators. To teach for social justice requires one not only to manage the steep learning curve that all new teachers rnust face but to be able to navigate through a school context laden with hindrances such as instructional pacing, test prep­ aration, and rnandated curriculum, rnany of which work directly against a social justice agenda.

Our Study-Assumptions and Method We, the five authors of this article, met in the fall of 2005 to discuss our university's master's preservice elementary inclu­ sive education program (three ofus were involved in running that program) and to design a study that would investigate whether and how recent graduates of the progra1n were emp­ hasizing social justice in their curricula. Although we were confident that some beginning teachers graduated from our prograrn with a commitment to social justice, we knew little about how these teachers translated their conceptions and co1n1nitn1ents into actual classroon1 practices. Few research­ ers have conducted follow-up studies of teacher education graduates to explore how social justice is integrated into instruc­ tion and the day-to-day activities of teachers and students in schools. Therefore, we identified such a study as irnportant to pursue.

We launched a n1ulticase study by asking, for beginning teachers who are cornrnitted to teaching for social justice, how does this comrnitment affect their lesson plans and their classroom instruction? We view these lessons and instruc­ tional moves as a part of the curricular enactn1ents in their ele1nentary classrooms. Curriculum enactrnent is defined as not just the delivery of information or adaptation of curricu­ lum but rather as the interactions between and a1nong students and teachers as they interpret and construct meaning through classroom content and pedagogy (Snyder, Bolin, & Zumwalt,

1992). Rather than viewing curriculum as information that is transrnitted fron1 teacher to student, we perceive it as "the edu­ cational experiences jointly created by student and teacher" (Snyder et al., 1992, p. 418). This broader conception of cur­ riculurn allows us to recognize the ways in which social justice curricula can be regularly enacted, even when they are not part of a prerneditated lesson.

We created a weekly research seminar to engage a srnall group of doctoral students in our research efforts. The five authors of this article were the seminar's teaching team, and 12 students joined us as coresearchers. We knew that within the scope of one semester, we would not be able to complete the study fully and chose to emphasize the processes of data collection and data analysis within the seminar. Therefore, before the semester began, we determined that the study would be centered on multiple cases of beginning teachers and that each doctoral student would learn about the practices of one beginning teacher through observations and interviews.

This research design grew fron1 our assumption of the uniqueness and storied nature of teachers' experiences (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). In particular, political under­ standings are the result of one's life story and socia l location; therefore, we knew that the teachers .vould articulate a wide range of personal, evolving, and time-bound beliefs about social justice. We expected that these differences would be exacerbated by the different teaching contexts in which the teachers were working. Although they were mainly in urban settings, the graduates ,ve studied were working in schools with differing levels of racial and socioeconomic diversity. Only one participant taught in a suburban school. We chose to collect and analyze case st11dies so that the "local particu­ lars" of each teacher's experiences could be studied (Dyson & Genishi, 2005, p. 3).

To recruit beginning teachers to participate in the study, we sent an invitation to all graduates of the previous 2 years of our program for whom we had current ernails and who were teaching in the geographical area of our teacher educa­ tion program (11= approximately 50). We explained in our invitation that we were interested in looking at how begin­ ning teachers who had graduated from our teacher education program enacted social justice cun·icula in their classrooms. Frorn our perspective, a response to the invitation indicating desire to participate in the study suggested that these teach­ ers had an acknowledged co,nmitment to teach for social justice. Twelve teachers ultimately committed to the study, and each was paired with a graduate student researcher.

Before the doctoral student researchers rnet the beginning teachers, they engaged with relevant academic readings, includ­ ing rnethodological texts and literature related to teaching for social justice within the context of the seminar. The teaching team and the doctoral students also collaboratively devel­ oped observation protocols as well as interview protocols. The first interview was designed to help researchers farnil­ iarize the1nselves with their participating teachers and get a

240 journalofTeacher Education 61 (3)

sense of their backgrounds and their conceptions of social justice. Although the researchers worked with a set of focus questions, the questions were seen as tentative, and as a class, we discussed the importance of keeping our attention on the issues that the participants raised (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992). Ultimately, the interviews were active, enabling each teacher to refer to personal, and potentially alternative, knowledge and perspectives (Holstein & Gubriun1, 1995). After the inter­ view, each participating teacher identified examples of social justice teaching for the researcher to observe. The researcher then conducted from one to three observations in the teacher's classroom, aiming to collect "unobtrusive data" (Hatch, 1995, p. 214). The observations were followed by informal interviews in which the researcher asked the teacher to describe the lesson and explain how the lesson was an exa1nple of social justice teaching. The entire field-based research experience was then concluded with an exit inter­ view in which the teacher explained how her lessons reflected her conceptions of social justice and the hindrances that she experienced when doing this work.

We recognized that by asking teachers to de1nonstrate spe­ cific instances of social justice teaching, we would be narrowing the types of curricular enactments that we would be able to see. In addition, we may have put a binary in place by sug­ gesting that some lessons reflect ideals of social justice and some do not. This does not reflect our belief, and we see the potential drawbacks of this decision. Furthermore, as we explained above, curricular enactments are the interactions and joint experiences between teachers and students (Snyder et al., 1992)and include educational interactions beyond the enactment of classroom-based lessons. That said, each rese­ archer had a limited amount of time in her participant's classroom, and we agreed that asking teachers to identify their own examples of social justice teaching would be the most efficient way to view these enactments in action. In addition, this methodological decision illustrates our dedica­ tion to " insider" rather than "ou