Individual Exploration; Reclaiming English Education: Rooting Social Justice in Dispositions

Leave it to me to choose an 18 page article to read and annotate for the one blog post where we get to choose it ourselves. Why do I do this to myself? Anyway...

The article I chose to read on the topic of Social Justice in Education was "Reclaiming English Education: Rooting Social Justice in Dispositions". In summary, authors Janet Alsup and sj Miller grapple with the ever changing Social Justice disposition requirement for preservice teacher assessment. "This article attempts to begin this conversation and serve as a call to action for English educators who struggle with the idea of teaching and assessing social justice dispositions" (196).

While it would make sense that student teachers should be assessed on their thoughts about social justice in schools, NCATE recently removed the standard about social justice claiming that it can be condensed under the heading diversity. Our authors were not pleased by this and comment,

"When we see absences of the words social justice, replaced by more politically comfortable or less charged terms such as diversity or even tolerance, we, as English educators who recognize that our students cannot be reduced to essentialist or binary categories, might challenge how social justice is being defined and by whom, as social justice and diversity are not the same" (197).

While Alsup and Miller also acknowledge that a concept such as social justice could be difficult to assess within a preservice teacher's disposition, they do provide solutions which include:  Specific assignment development, observation of specific social justice ideals in the classroom, as well as a social justice specific portfolio. They also make a point to include a rubric for evaluating these nebulous concepts, and give explicit instructions for how to educate to the current standard.

In addition, by drawing attention to acts of injustice in schools Alsup and Miller hope to ground ideals dealing with social justice in the teacher preparation curriculum. For them, it is not simply enough to talk about binary diversity, and lightly touch on practicing teacher's preconceptions about what social justice should mean in the classroom

"By making sure social justice is an inherent and transparent aspect of valued dispositions for English teachers, we enact our belief that preparing English teachers is not only about lesson planning and the Common Core State Standards; It is also about fostering and effectively assessing social justice-inspired dispositions that are the foundation for a critical and equitable education for today's diverse students" (211)

Overall, this was a very enlightening article to read; it was interesting to put myself in the shoes of someone who would be educating myself, and think about the things that I will need to be aware of as I continue to evaluate my own professional disposition.

It is clear that as teachers saying, "we have a big job to do" is an understatement. The success or failure of tomorrow's youth depends on whether or not we are successful at teaching them all that they will need to know in life outside of school. If we fail to teach them about something as important as social justice, or cooperation with peers, or even something as simple as listening or critical thinking skills, the repercussions of that failure could yield immeasurable disparities for our students.