Towards Social Justice In/Through Education

1. ECS 110 Mike Cappello Towards Social Justice In/Through Education

2. Where Are We? • Review of sorts • Identities • Race • Class • Gender • Sexuality • Abilities • In groups of four or so… • What is common about these identities? Come up with a list of the similarities between how these identities are produced / enacted.

3. Where Are We? • Similarities • All identities are mediated through representations and citational practices • Dominant Self depends on an ‘other’ • Dominant term is ‘unmarked’ • In each case – dominance is partly dependent upon this hiddenness • Dominant term does not need to understand • No real choice • Science/dominant knowledge has shaped our understanding of these identities • Identities are multiple and work together / against each other in complex ways • Identities • Race • Class • Gender • Sexuality • Abilities

4. Foregrounding Schools • Schools play a role in producing ‘self’ and ‘other’ through: • Curriculum • Pedagogy • Subjectivity • Consider the central place that schools occupy – length of time, time of life, public imaginary… • Schools are subject forming institutions. • Inequalities (and privileges) are attached to particular social identities. • Schools become necessary sites to struggle against these inequalities. • This struggle is part of the history of schooling…

5. A Story… What do I do with all of this? Septima Clark Citizenship Schools Hawaii Conference The Strong Black Woman is Dead…

6. The Strong Black Woman is Dead…

7. A Story… What do I do with all of this? Septima Clark Citizenship Schools Hawaii Conference The Strong Black Woman is Dead… Let’s explore this story together… What is going on here? Who do I get to be? What might be wrong with this ‘moment’? • Conversations about racism and resistance • ‘Everybody needs a Mike’

8. (You) Teachers and Justice • Barb Thomas’“A Letter to My Daughters” • We'd better be clear about the reasons we fight racism and other big wrongs. This is where I have come to at this point in my life; I fight racism because I can't be with myself in the world without trying to do so. I fight racism, as I fight other forms of domination, because it has killed millions of people; because it has totally messed up relations between people(s) on this planet; because it forces me into oppressive relations that I reject with other people(s); because it lies about who is in the world and who has made what happen; because it has limited what I have been able to see and know; because it diminishes the friendship and community that I seek, with others, to build; and because I learned through the two of you that inaction is complicity. When I'm clear about that place in myself, I can, as bell hooks says in her book Black Looks, "be capable, via my political choices, of working on behalf of the oppressed." But I can't work on behalf of anyone else until I know where I am.

9. You are not responsible … but you can’t escape… • You did not… • You continue to live in a world built on the legacy of those wrongs, and largely benefit from them. • Education is already political, already involved in shaping inequalities. • How will you in your teaching account for and respond to this reality?

10. Use discomfort to pose new questions to yourself… • Think of some of the moments in this class that have made you uncomfortable… • Discomfort tells us about something we don’t want to know, or maybe don’t want to admit to knowing. • How will you pay attention to and seek out discomfort so that you can be personally transformed? • How will you incorporate discomfort into your teaching to create environments that can transform your students?

11. Distinguish between… hurt feelings… and damage inflicted… by the big wounds. • My pains are different than the ‘big ones’ • I can take my ball and go home… • I urge you to continue to educate yourself about the effects of the long-term living out of these marginalized identities. • How will you account for why you engage in these issues of justice and inequality?

12. Value your own experiences as sources of learning and wisdom… • We already have some understanding of these realities • Identify the kinds of experiences you need to have in order to continue to understand. • “We Make the Road by Walking” • How can you continue to remain open to the privileges you carry while you engage in this work?

13. Make the most of who you are without damaging other people… • Not being apologetic about who you are… • Recognize that every teaching moment and our ‘best practices’ are always complicated – opening up some opportunities while closing down others • How can I teach and ally myself with others who are striving for justice in ways that don’t reinscribe my power and privilege?

14. Beginnings… • i) How will you use your next 3.5 years of classes and experiences to grow in your understanding of how your identity is dependent on the ‘other’ and how your identity colludes with forces that oppress? • ii) How will what you are coming to know about these inequities influence the way that you engage with teacher education and how you imagine yourself as a teacher?