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Leaders for Social Justice make sure that parents and community members have a voice in their school and are welcomed and included in important decisions.

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Strong communication between school staff and families is important in any school and has special relevance for schools committed to anti-bias education.

Communication built on misinformation, assumptions or stereotypes can create distance between schools, families and students. If handled with respect and cultural sensitivity, however, school-family communication provides an opportunity to live out the values of inclusiveness and equity, which are at the heart of anti-bias education. The following guidelines can help schools avoid communication pitfalls and support teacher-family relationships built on respect:

Assume good intentions, and approach all families as partners who want the best for their children.

Invite parents or guardians to share knowledge about their students' lives, interests, hopes and struggles.

Invite parents or guardians to share information about family cultures and traditions.

Recognize and respect differences in family structures.

Recognize the role that identity and background may play in shaping relationships between teachers and families.

Bring a sense of self-reflectiveness and cultural humility to all conversations and interactions.

View linguistic, cultural and family diversity as strengths.

In addition to setting a tone of respect and inclusivity, strong communication with families also offers teachers an opportunity to invite family involvement and share curricular goals, materials and resources.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Attending to culturally sensitive communication supports two of the four anti-bias domains: Identity and Diversity. Culturally relevant family engagement strategies communicate to students that their family identities are understood and valued. It also demonstrates respect for families with a diverse range of backgrounds and structures.

Strategies

Inclusive Terminology and Materials

Positive communication can be as simple as using inclusive language when writing and speaking to families. For example, instead of sending home a note that opens, "Dear Parents," use a greeting such as "Dear Families." All communication should be checked for assumptions about household resources, family traditions, cultural practices, political affiliations or other life circumstances. For instance, instead of asking for "mother's name" and "father's name" on a form, have a space for "names of parents/guardians."

Recognition of Key Relationships

Teachers should make a point of learning the central figures in each student's life-including those who may not be legal parents or guardians-and involving them as appropriate. This may include welcoming stepparents, parental partners (regardless of gender) or extended family members.

Use of Home Languages

Because language plays a crucial role in families' lives, teachers should communicate with parents in their home languages as much as possible. Whenever possible, family materials should be provided in students' home languages. When translation is needed, a school-provided translator should be employed, as asking students to translate can put them in an awkward position.

Beginning-of-the-Year Questionnaires or Conversations

Teachers can gather valuable information about students by connecting with parents and guardians early in the school year. Asking family members about students' strengths, challenges and lives outside of school-as well as about their own hopes and fears- provides important background, sets a collaborative tone and allows classroom practice to reflect student identities.

Incorporating family and community knowledge enhances student learning. Students possess tremendous experiential wisdom on issues related to identity, culture, history and justice. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, cousins, neighbors and community leaders frequently have stories to share about their lives and perspectives.

Family and community wisdom can put a personal face on historical or sociological material and help demystify unfamiliar topics, such as LGBT identity or living with a disability. Hearing from real people who have lived through eras of change or participated in social justice movements can provide inspiration as well as information.

Students also carry knowledge of their families and communities inside themselves. Making room to share this knowledge supports the development of student identities.

Family assignments must be envisioned and explained in a culturally sensitive manner. A seemingly harmless activity, such as creating a family tree, can marginalize students whose biological relations are distant or unknown. Such assignments can be modified to recognize the key relationships in students' lives. Other ways to incorporate family and community wisdom into the curriculum include community surveys, student conversations with family members, interviews, guest speakers, video projects, art projects, memoir or other family-based writing, oral histories, learning from family members' professional experiences, and incorporating family or cultural perspectives into the analysis of texts.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Drawing on students' family and community wisdom supports two of the four anti-bias domains: Identity and Diversity. By listening to the stories of their own families and communities, students can deepen their sense of self and make personal connections with historical, literary and sociological material. Hearing about different classmates' families and communities can also foster new perspectives on their own experiences and expand their understanding of other groups, cultures and communities.

Strategies

Family Interviews

Students can interview family members on a variety of issues such as historical events or eras, family experiences of justice or injustice, evolving cultural norms, social movements and identity. Interview format, questions and reporting practices should be customized based on grade level and educational goals.

Guest Speakers

Family and community members can visit the class to speak about a range of topics. Their connections to these issues may be personal, professional or both.

Community Research

Conducting community-based research can deepen students' understanding of social justice issues. This research might include opinion surveys or needs assessments, community interviews, visits to local sites or Internet research about community history.

As students learn and grow together over the course of weeks, months and years, parents and guardians can learn along with them. Strong connections give families the opportunity to support one another in nurturing their children's identities and values, adding richness to the work of anti-bias and social justice education.

There are lots of ways to bring families together, including in-school or community-based events, group email lists and social media. Teachers, school administrators, students, or parents and guardians can coordinate appropriate family connections based on the students' age and the composition of the community. Elementary school students, for example, may be more likely than high school students to enjoy attending events with their families. A given activity may resonate with some cultural communities more than others (though it might be good to offer "stretch" events as well). And some communities will have access to the technology and skills needed to support online interaction, while others will not.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Building connections among families supports two of the four anti-bias domains: Identity and Diversity. This practice deepens students' awareness of the personal and cultural contexts that shape personal experience. It also provides a "learning lab" for introducing different family structures and traditions. Making the curriculum more visible to classroom families helps generate support for anti-bias education work and provides opportunities for families to work with their children on social justice issues. These connections can also foster diverse relationships that echo and strengthen key messages from the curriculum.

Strategies

Family Events

Events that bring students and families together include family potlucks or picnics; family affinity events (e.g., for families from a certain cultural or ethnic group, for LGBT families, for families of color, for adoptive families); showcases of student work; student or community performances; film nights; game nights; and cultural or multicultural events.

Parent/Guardian Education Programs

Educational programming supports community building and engages family members. Possible programs include films, speakers or discussions for parents and guardians on topics such as bullying prevention, identity development, racial experiences, gender expression, sexuality, learning differences and family diversity. Events may stand alone or be part of an ongoing series.

Family Service/Engagement Projects

Service projects can include family action days at the local food bank, working together on neighborhood political and social issues, attending community events such as Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations or LGBT Pride events, and fundraising projects for community causes.

Pooling Resources and Sharing Support

In addition to organizing or publicizing formal events, teachers can encourage families to connect informally to share information and resources and to support one another in times of need (e.g., the birth of a new baby or a death in the family). The school can foster this type of support by naming it as an explicit priority and creating a user-friendly contact list or online directory.

All local communities have valuable resources that can enhance teaching and learning on social justice topics, even if these resources are not always explicit or obvious. They include events, people, places and organizations.

Events. Cultural and community celebrations, commemorations, political actions, artistic events, performances, student conferences and community education events.

People. Elders, artists, musicians, researchers, community leaders, policymakers, journalists, advocates, local historians, cultural workers and everyday people who have experienced and worked on social justice issues.

Places. Museums, cultural centers, libraries, neighborhood landmarks, and sites of historical interest or struggle.

Organizations. Formal or informal groups engaged in relevant cultural, artistic, social or political projects.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Drawing on local resources supports all four anti-bias domains: Identity, Diversity, Justice and Action. Witnessing marginalization, power dynamics and activism in their own communities strengthens personal connections with these curricular concepts. At a broader level, schools benefit from community connections and partnerships, and communities benefit when citizens are educated in matters of equity and justice.

Strategies

Classroom or School Presentations

Individuals or organizational representatives can be invited to speak about how their life or work experiences relate to social justice themes.

Neighborhood Explorations

Social-movement-based history and cultural knowledge often connect to specific cities and neighborhoods. For example, certain New York City neighborhoods offer windows into the lives of different immigrant groups during the 19th and 20th centuries. Montgomery, Ala., houses landmarks and monuments from the civil rights era. Visiting sites like these can add richness to students' curricular experiences. Neighborhood explorations can also be paired with classroom or school presentations.

Connecting with Community Organizations

Most cities and towns have local organizations that engage in cultural activities, community service efforts or social justice advocacy. Many of these organizations are happy to partner with schools, provide students with information and offer opportunities for students to participate in their projects.

A core component of anti-bias education is learning to take action against exclusion, prejudice and discrimination; it can be especially powerful for students to do this in their own schools and local communities.

Consider the following tips for ensuring that community engagement efforts reflect anti-bias values:

Create a community action project that addresses real needs. Community organizations can help articulate these needs and suggest ways to maximize students' time and talents.

Draw on students' knowledge of and personal connection to the issues involved. The more specific the project, the better.

Include a strong research component that ensures students' efforts to increase their knowledge and understanding are not simply based on what they already know.

Incorporate reflection about student attitudes to ensure the project doesn't reinforce assumptions or stereotypes about specific people or communities.

Provide writing prompts to help students consider personal changes they can make to challenge bias, exclusion and injustice.

Study the broader social context surrounding the community problem. Intervene if students "blame the victim" for challenges beyond individual control.

Use texts to spark student reflection about community challenges and issues.

Work "with," not "for," individuals or groups the class wants to support.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Expecting students to engage directly with community issues and problems supports two of the four anti-bias domains: Justice and Action.

Strategies

Personal Action Plan

After reading about prejudice or discrimination, the Personal Action Plan assignment asks students to reflect on these issues in their own surroundings and explore how they might help make their school and community more welcoming, inclusive and equitable. The Personal Action Plan can focus on one particular topic (e.g., name-calling and bullying, peer culture, diversity of gender expression or LGBT issues), or it can be more general. Plans should focus on acts of personal change, and students should share their plans with classmates to build accountability for implementation.

"Fighting for Fairness" Letters

The Fairness Letter Project (Live Oak School, San Francisco, Calif.) asks students to identify an instance of unfairness in their school or community, research the issue and write an advocacy letter to a person or organization with power to change the situation. In addition to developing issue-based analysis and critical writing skills, this project requires students to evaluate how change happens and where they can best channel their efforts for maximum impact.

Student-Designed Community Projects

Any social justice issue could inspire an individual or group project designed to support local people. Possible projects include designing a public service announcement, conducting a survey or opinion poll, providing direct service through a community agency, creating a workshop or event or hosting a justice-themed art show.

Ongoing Partnerships with Community Organizations

Semester- or year-long community partnerships offer students a chance to establish continuity and deeper connections with particular issues, populations or projects. A partnership spanning multiple years gives each class a chance to build on previous classes' work, multiplying the impact.

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Strong communication between school staff and families is important in any school and has special relevance for schools committed to anti-bias education. Communication built on misinformation, assumptions or stereotypes can create distance between schools, families and students.

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Leaders for Social Justice help students see the connection between in civic engagement and leadership

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Many English language arts and social studies teachers are working to make their curricula more engaging to adolescent learners by including topics that affect the lives of their students. Teenagers often feel passionately about social justice, or issues that directly affects those in their communities.

Teachers in Oakland are working to help young people find ways to take what they are learning and become active agents for change in their community using a program called Educating for Democracy in the Digital Age. The Teaching Channel documented how teachers empower and engage students through a curriculum devoted to not only teaching students about the problems, but giving them tools to begin trying to change them.

"The civic engagement work has given students a sense of agency, a sense of voice, and like a structure to think about 'how can I actually do something with the things that I'm learning,'" said Matt Colley, a ninth grade English and History teacher at Oakland Technical High School.* "And to really see school as a springboard to community engagement, as opposed to a report card grade."

Civic Engagement in the Digital Age from Teaching Channel on Vimeo.

Many of the issues facing Oakland students, like violence or discrimination, are big systemic issues that many people in society have tried to address for a long time. These issues can feel overwhelming, but trying to understand a complex issue with deep historical roots is a good exercise in systems thinking. One assignment asks students to create an infographic that simply, but accurately, conveys the root cause, issue and a theory of change.

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How Civic Engagement Helps Students See Their Capacity to Make Change

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Many English language arts and social studies teachers are working to make their curricula more engaging to adolescent learners by including topics that affect the lives of their students. Teenagers often feel passionately about social justice, or issues that directly affects those in their communities.

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I believe that classroom structure helps each student own their leadership and learning, as well as question and reflect upon their point of view those of others.

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When asking students to explore issues of personal and social identity, teachers must provide safe spaces where students are seen, valued, cared for and respected. It is also important that students have opportunities to learn from one another's varied experiences and perspectives. To create this learning environment, teachers need to skillfully draw on student experiences to enrich the curriculum.

Teachers can show they value students' lives and identities in a variety of ways. Some are small, like taking the time to learn the proper pronunciation of every student's name or getting to know young people's families. Others require more time and investment, like building curriculum around personal narratives or incorporating identity-based responses into the study of texts. At the community level, it is important to understand neighborhood demographics, strengths, concerns, conflicts and challenges. Like students themselves, these dynamics may change frequently.

For teachers whose experiences differ from those of their students, it is critical to exercise sensitivity. They must bring the following to the effort:

An asset-based view of youth and unfamiliar identity groups

A commitment to avoiding and challenging stereotypes

A sense of openness and cultural humility

A willingness to let students define their own identities

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Honoring student experience supports three of the four anti-bias domains: Identity, Diversity and Action. Students who feel their experiences are unwelcome, judged, stereotyped, disrespected or invisible find it extremely difficult to engage in meaningful discussion of identity and justice issues. Those whose stories and voices are heard and reflected in the classroom are more likely to engage with anti-bias curriculum and translate their learning into action.

Knowing and valuing students' lives provides other benefits:

Ability to identify potential "hot spots" on key topics.

Development of caring student-teacher relationships that support effective identity-based learning.

Development of intergroup awareness and understanding.

Direction in the selection of texts that are relevant to a particular class.

Appreciation of student contributions to discussions.

Strategies

Classroom-Reflective Texts Coupled with Nonjudgmental Dialogue

Choosing texts that reflect classroom demographics and following the readings with discussions or reflective writing assignments can provide teachers with powerful information about their students' hopes, concerns, strengths and life circumstances. These practices also open channels of understanding among students. Successful conversations about issues of identity frequently lead to deeper dialogue about students' own backgrounds and the experiences of others.

Share Stories That Make Room for Student Sharing

Personal anecdotes-respectfully and thoughtfully shared by teachers-have great power. Stories should be chosen carefully, kept brief, and told at a level that invites appropriate student sharing.

Community Study or Student-Led Walking Tour

Community studies usually address up to three questions; structure can vary greatly and may involve research, interviews, art, writing, video or other media. A walking tour should also focus on a few themes and ask students to highlight neighborhood places they find meaningful in relation to a relevant social issue. Student age and physical limitations should be taken into consideration when planning a walking tour.

Without saying a word, classrooms send messages about diversity, relationship building, communication and the roles of teachers and students. Consider the different messages sent by these two classrooms:

Classroom 1

Desks are arranged in a U shape. The teacher's desk is in the front center of the room. On the wall is a poster of U.S. presidents, a copy of the Declaration of Independence and inspiring quotes from Winston Churchill, Robert F. Kennedy and Albert Einstein. Students are working quietly on an independent assignment.

Classroom 2

Desks are arranged in clusters of four with students facing one another. The teacher's desk is in the back corner of the room. On the wall is a display of student self-portraits, a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and inspiring quotes from Maya Angelou and César Chávez. Students are working with their table-mates on a group project.

Classroom setup should be student centered. Specifics will vary from teacher to teacher and class to class, but common elements include these:

Classroom milieu. Classrooms should be decorated with multicultural images that mirror student backgrounds and showcase the diversity of our society.

Arrangement of furniture and supplies. The arrangement will look different depending on age group and subject, but all teachers can draw on these goals when setting up a classroom: supporting collaboration, fostering dialogue, encouraging ownership and ensuring comfort.

Student roles and responsibilities. Classrooms will be most effective when structured to maximize student voice and participation.

Classroom norms. Norms and expectations should take into account different cultural and communication styles, as well as gender differences, language needs and the desire to challenge stereotypes. Students should be involved in setting classroom norms to generate buy-in.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Thoughtful classroom setup and structure supports two of the four anti-bias domains: Diversity and Justice. A welcoming class space sets the tone for participatory engagement. Diverse images affect students' conscious and subconscious understanding of classroom values. Expectations and practices that honor diverse backgrounds also create a more just and equitable educational experience.

Strategies

Classroom "Audit"

A (nonjudgmental) classroom audit involves "reading" the messages conveyed by the images on the walls, the books on the shelves and the arrangement of the furniture with an eye toward diversity, equity and student empowerment. The audit also includes considering the types of interactions that teachers have with students and that students have with one another.

Student Jobs and Ownership of Classroom Space

Many daily tasks can be done by students who, given the opportunity, may create new and interesting ways to approach them. Real-world lessons related to work and responsibility can be reinforced in a classroom. Students can apply for a position and be rewarded or promoted for a job well done. Some classroom jobs might involve passing out materials, documenting or taking notes, managing a classroom library, filing papers or helping with a bulletin board. The job of "peacemaker" can work nicely in classrooms where students have been trained in conflict resolution. Jobs in a responsive classroom can accommodate multiple learning styles such as artistic, kinesthetic and verbal.

Gender-Neutral Practices

Many teachers, especially at the elementary level, seat or group students along gender lines. However, not everyone fits traditional gender categories. Some students may feel they are truly a different gender than their physical bodies suggest; others might not fit neatly into either the male or female identity category. Using gender-neutral categories or allowing students to choose the group with which they identify affirms the experiences of all students.

Differences shape who we are and what we know. Life, history, society and power cannot be understood from a single perspective; we need multiple viewpoints to truly see the world. Because of this, inclusive classrooms must function as learning communities built on shared inquiry and dialogue.

Dialogue is more than conversation. It is also different than debate, in which someone wins and someone loses. Dialogue requires openness to new ideas and collective learning. This is not an easy practice; for students (and teachers) to engage in dialogue, they must build and exercise specific skills:

Listening. Deeply listening to what others say and to the feelings, experiences and wisdom behind what they say.

Humility. Recognizing that, however passionately we hold ideas and opinions, other people may hold pieces of the puzzle that we don't.

Respect. Trusting the integrity of others, believing they have the right to their opinions (even when different from your own) and valuing others enough to risk sharing ideas.

Trust. Building a safe space to explore new ideas and work through conflicts, controversy and painful moments that may arise when talking about issues of injustice and oppression.

Voice. Speaking the truth as we see it and asking questions about things we don't know or understand, particularly on topics related to identity, power and justice.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Shared inquiry and dialogue support two of the four anti-bias domains: Diversity and Action. Building the skills necessary to explore multiple perspectives fosters critical thinking, complex textual understanding and appreciation for diversity. Dialogue also supports active listening, respectful sharing and conflict resolution. A culture of shared inquiry offers a lived example of meaningful collaborative work and a model for community building.

Strategies

Naming Shared Inquiry as a Goal

Because many students experience classrooms that do not value shared inquiry and dialogue, it is important for teachers to create a safe environment before asking students to engage in this work. Safety can be established by discussing principles of engagement, demonstrating the teacher's commitment to collective learning or creating a set of discussion agreements.

Teaching Active Listening Skills

Active listening is a way of hearing and responding to another person that requires the listener to stop thinking about his or her own ideas and focus on the speaker. Active listening behavior includes asking good questions, listening without judgment and paraphrasing. These behaviors can be modeled through the use of talking circles or ordered sharing. Short practice activities can also strengthen active listening skills.

Rethinking Participation Norms

To most teachers, class participation means contributing to discussions, volunteering to answer questions or otherwise engaging in verbal exchanges. However, participation does not have to be verbal; gender, culture and ability may affect student comfort levels with verbal communication. Modeling equity and inclusiveness calls for a broader definition of participation that includes active listening, written response, artistic response and involvement in small groups. These options should all be valued as classroom participation.

Addressing Conflicts and Hurt Feelings

Teachers need to prepare for possible conflicts or hurt feelings when exploring personally or politically sensitive material. Teachers can encourage students to publicly or privately name "ouch moments"-times when comments or reactions (usually unintentional) cause upset or discomfort. It is also helpful for teachers to check in with students who seem upset as a result of a class activity or conversation.

Social-emotional learning, respect and safety are as important as literacy and critical thinking skills when exploring an anti-bias curriculum. Research shows that students need to feel both physically and emotionally safe to learn. This includes safety from stereotype threat, harassment and exclusion.

Creating a safe climate takes time and work. These are some of the most important components:

Active teaching of social-emotional skills

Attention to creating positive relationships

Bullying prevention and intervention

Community building

Explicit focus on understanding and appreciating differences

Meaningful conflict resolution

Teaching students to challenge bias and exclusion

Upstander training

Work on classroom climate and social-emotional learning cannot simply focus on empathy, kindness and inclusion. Social difference and bias underlie many unsafe and exclusionary behaviors; these issues need to be discussed explicitly. Appreciation for multicultural perspectives is also critical when teaching about relationship building, conflict management and community. This helps students learn to draw on many traditions and experiences and address social divisions in the classroom.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Prioritizing social and emotional safety supports three of the four anti-bias domains: Identity, Diversity and Action. This practice supports a classroom community in which students feel secure enough to engage in respectful, productive conversations about identity and diversity. This work also models actions necessary to nurture inclusive, respectful connections across lines of difference.

Strategies

Classroom Contracts

A contract of norms and behaviors can help define the classroom community as a socially and emotionally safe place. Students should participate in shaping the contract, identifying a list of agreements about how class members will treat one another, talk together and so on. Issues such as identity, difference and power should be addressed explicitly. For example, a contract could include "Listen with respect to the experiences of others," "Try to understand what someone is saying before rushing to judgment" or "Put-downs of any kind are never OK."

Explicit Anti-bullying or Community-Building Curricula

Many powerful anti-bullying and community- building curricula, when integrated into the regular school curriculum, can build social-emotional skills and teach students to manage conflict. Below are a few suggested resources. Not all address diversity or bias issues specifically; be sure to add these issues to the existing materials if they're missing.

Tribes Learning Community. Research-based approaches to classroom and school-wide community building, social-emotional education and the development of positive learning communities (all grades).

Respect for All Project (GroundSpark). Award-winning films, curriculum guides and teacher training on issues of bias-based bullying, family diversity, gender role expectations and LGBT inclusivity (all grades).

Steps to Respect/Second Step (Committee for Children). Research-based social-emotional learning and bullying-prevention programs (pre-K through middle school).

Bullied: A Student, a School and a Case That Made History (Learning for Justice). Documentary and teaching guide about one student's ordeal at the hands of anti-gay bullies and his fight against hate and harassment (middle and high school).

A Guide to the Film Bully by Lee Hirsch (Facing History and Ourselves). Film and discussion guide on bullying and its profound impact on several different students and families (middle and high school).

Participation in Mix It Up at Lunch Day

Mix It Up is a Learning for Justice program designed to help students identify, question and cross social boundaries. Launched in 2001, Mix It Up recognizes that some of the deepest social divisions in schools are found in the cafeteria. Each fall, Learning for Justice sponsors a national Mix It Up at Lunch Day when schools around the country encourage students to move out of their comfort zones and share a meal with peers who are different from them.

Discipline and behavior management are central to classroom culture. How are students encouraged to treat one another? What happens when they make poor choices or present behavioral challenges? What shapes student-teacher interactions? And what happens when conflicts arise?

This critical practice asks teachers to think about behavior management in light of five key principles:

Belief in the dignity of every person

Community building

Equity and fairness

Respect for cultural differences

Respect for the safety and inclusion of all individuals and groups

These values can be creatively infused into disciplinary practices. However, in general, responsive classrooms address three key aspects.

First, behavior management systems must support safe, inclusive communities by enforcing high standards for respectful interaction; incorporating student-generated discipline policies; teaching conflict resolution; and actively addressing all instances of bias, bullying, exclusion or disrespect.

Second, disciplinary incidents must go beyond punishment and be treated as opportunities for growth, restitution and community building. This is not to say that rules violations should not be met with consequences. However, if community respect is to be a core classroom value, students should not be cast out of the group, even if they struggle to live up to expectations.

Finally, behavior management practices must reflect fairness, equity and cultural awareness. Research shows that students of color and special education students face disproportionate rates of discipline, suspension and expulsion. These patterns have devastating social consequences. Applying disciplinary rules fairly requires self-awareness and willingness to suspend judgment (positive as well as negative) about individual students. Culture also plays a role in disciplinary judgments; in some cases, "inappropriate behaviors" may reflect a cultural mismatch between the norms of the school and the norms of a student's home culture. Teachers can better understand the relationship between culture and discipline by working on a related critical practice: self-awareness and cultural competency.

Connection to Anti-bias Education

Taking a values-based approach to behavior management and discipline supports one of the four anti-bias domains: Justice. This practice exposes students to community-building goals and to a system of justice that values all people and builds connections rather than creates divisions.

Strategies

Student-Generated Agreements and Contracts

Involving students in the design of classroom discipline policies can go a long way toward establishing buy-in and shared ownership of classroom culture. Ideally, students will work on the policies as a class, but teachers can also work individually with students who need extra support.

"Zero Indifference" but Not Zero Tolerance

Although zero-tolerance policies are popular, mounting evidence suggests that this approach does not make schools safer. An alternative (recommended by the American Civil Liberties Union; GLSEN; the Anti-Defamation League; the Respect for All Project; and Learning for Justice) is taking a "zero-indifference" approach to bullying, harassment and other disciplinary issues. Zero indifference means never letting disrespectful conduct go unaddressed; school staff always name and respond to behaviors, but they do not implement automatic suspension, expulsion or other punishments.

Restorative Justice

Restorative justice is an approach to school discipline (and criminal justice) that emphasizes repairing harm and restoring relationships rather than simply punishing those who have engaged in misconduct. Restorative justice spans a wide variety of practices and strategies, including peacemaking circles, peer jury processes, mediation, conferencing and classroom discussions focused on building empathy.

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When asking students to explore issues of personal and social identity, teachers must provide safe spaces where students are seen, valued, cared for and respected. It is also important that students have opportunities to learn from one another's varied experiences and perspectives.

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Knows she cannot lead alone, which means that true, collaborative working relationships which focus on culturally relevant dialogue and understanding are essential (Cooper 2010).

Embraces, engages and empowers ALL others around her (Cooper 2010).

Is a transformational leader, who has a deep understanding of how people, place and process intermix in order to transform and motivate to accomplish a goal (Peters, 2010).

Understands that a successful leader is a servant, first. He makes sure that he can and will do anything he asks others to do (Sergiovanni, 2000)

Must not be afraid to practice "Moral Outrage" in order to disrupt and change the status quo. (Dantley & Tillman, 2010)

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Effective leaders know and understand that ".... outcomes are the result of a complex set of interactions among group members plus environmental and historical forces. (Gardner, 2000 p.10)

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I believe that effective leaders need to understand white fragility and disarm it.

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I believe that leaders for social justice need to be inclusive of all abilities and points of view.

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A leader for social justice honors and listens to all expression of feelings.

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The full house at Philharmonic Hall in New York City erupted into applause when Nina Simone's guitarist, Emile Latimer, plucked the final haunting note of "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair," the concert's opening number. Simone, whose commanding stage presence earned her the title the High Priestess of Soul, still hadn't spoken to her audience. And now she launched into her recent hit "Ain't Got No, I Got Life."

Like much of Simone's most memorable material, it was a cover - in this case a pairing of songs from Hair, the Broadway musical and ode to '60s counterculture. After delivering vocals that were more subdued than those on her hit record, Simone improvised: "Got my soul though it's been strained a little lately/ The voice has been abused too much lately/ But I still got my choice of live, die, laugh and cry/ And though I do them all, I gotta stay till my job is done/ And until then ... I got life!"

Simone wrote her unapologetically angry "Mississippi Goddam" as a response to the assassination of Medgar Evers and the Birmingham church bombing.

It was Oct. 26, 1969, and the ecstasy of 1967's summer of love had cooled. Simone's deep, powerful voice reflected that cultural shift. Though accompanied by an upbeat, funk-influenced arrangement, her voice rolled over the crowd like thunder before a storm: Sexual liberation might have been in full swing, but Simone was staying on the job to remind her audience that racism and inequality were alive and well.

The Grammy-nominated live album of the Philharmonic Hall concert, Black Gold, was recorded at the height of the American civil rights movement, which was the central inspiration for Simone's art in the '60s. She was an advocate of violent protest and stood as a defiant emblem of what African-American psychiatrists William Grier and Price Cobbs termed, in 1968, "Black rage." Nina, a classically trained pianist, said in her 1992 autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, that she found in civil rights "a purpose more important than classical music's pursuit on excellence."

Simone categorized the Philharmonic Hall concert as a "love gathering," which was in stark contrast to a performance one year earlier when the artist had asked a crowd enraged by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Are you ready, Black people? ... Are you ready to kill if necessary?"

In that same vein, Simone wrote her unapologetically angry "Mississippi Goddam" as a response to the assassination of activist Medgar Evers and the Birmingham church bombing that killed four young Black girls, both in 1963. The song was banned by numerous radio stations, some of which sent promotional singles back to the record company, each snapped in half.

That song, along with "Backlash Blues," "Strange Fruit" and "Turning Point," became anthems for the movement. Simone closes out Black Gold with a stirring performance of "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," which she wrote as an ode to Lorraine Hansberry, her recently deceased friend and the author of A Raisin in the Sun. She introduces the song by stating, "It is not addressed primarily to white people, though it does not put you down in any way. It simply ignores you."

Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon on Feb. 21, 1933, in Tryon, North Carolina, Waymon was a musical prodigy who headed north in 1950 at age 17 to study classical piano at the Juilliard School in New York City. There she trained with Carl Friedberg in preparation for an audition at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, but her application was denied due to what Simone suspected was racial prejudice. She began performing in nightclubs, switching to jazz, blues and folk until 1957, when she scored a Top 20 hit with "I Loves You, Porgy."

Though she enjoyed great success throughout the '60s, Simone battled mental health and financial issues in the '70s. After stints in Liberia, Switzerland and Barbados, she settled in the south of France. Desperate for money, Simone agreed to sing in a cafe in Paris for $300 a night and often performed to empty rooms.

She enjoyed a career renaissance in the '80s when her hit "My Baby Just Cares for Me" was used in a commercial for Chanel No. 5 perfume. After years of occasional touring, often to sold-out venues, Simone died of breast cancer in 2003 at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, France. She was 70 years old.

The final track on Black Gold is a cover of the Byrds' hit "Turn! Turn! Turn!" - a Pete Seeger folk song that draws its lyrics from Ecclesiastes. Simone chants: "A time to be born, and a time to die/ A time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted/ A time to kill, and a time to heal/ A time to break down, and a time to build up."

It's a recitation of humanity's enduring passages - ones that Nina Simone lived with an intensity as rare as her talent and conviction.

Nina Simone

Nickname: High Priestess of Soul

Vitals: b. Feb. 21, 1933, Tryon, North Carolina - d. April 21, 2003, Carry-le-Rouet, France

Instrument: Vocals, piano

Standards: "I Loves You, Porgy" (1958), "My Baby Just Cares for Me" (1958), "Ain't Got No, I Got Life" (1968)

Quirks: Classically trained pianist; used a stage name because her mother would not approve of her playing the "devil's music" in clubs (Nina was a boyfriend's nickname for her; Simone comes from French actress Simone Signoret).

Another take: What Happened, Miss Simone?, directed by Liz Garbus (2015)

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How Nina Simone Used Her Musical Art for Racial Justice

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The full house at Philharmonic Hall in New York City erupted into applause when Nina Simone's guitarist, Emile Latimer, plucked the final haunting note of "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair," the concert's opening number. Simone, whose commanding stage presence earned her the title the High Priestess of Soul, still hadn't spoken to her audience.

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Leading for Social Justice means  owning your privilege, and knowing how to use it to change things the status quo.

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"I'M WHITE. I have white privilege. I'm ashamed of it."

I received this e-mail from a woman in Oregon, and its pained tone didn't surprise me at all. It was a response to my column about the destructive toll of white fear on black lives after two men were arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks for no other reason than being black.

Whenever I write about racism, I get responses that fall into distinct categories - recognition, racist, or rueful. That last one is filled with white readers who say they not only abhor racism, but also the white privilege that mostly inoculates them from its venom.

Recalling her own trips to Starbucks, the woman wrote about using its restrooms without buying anything, something those two black men weren't allowed to do. She called what happened to them "horrific," and expressed how "sick and . . . tired" she is of such disturbing incidents.

As I occasionally do with readers, I hit reply.

"If I had white privilege, I don't think I'd be ashamed of it," I wrote. "I'd use it to expose injustice and work to make things better."

When your skin is white, racism is something of a thought experiment - it's not a daily experience of frustration, annoyance, humiliation, and fear.

It's not hard to do. Using white privilege for the greater good was on display in that Philadelphia Starbucks. Melissa DePino filmed and tweeted the video showing Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson being questioned, handcuffed, and perp-walked out of the coffee shop. DePino knew they did nothing wrong, and she verbally challenged the police.

So did Andrew Yaffe, who arrived at the coffee shop just as two men with whom he planned to have a business meeting were being arrested. "What did [the police] get called for?" he asked. "Because there are two black guys sitting here meeting me?"

In a CNN essay, DePino wrote, "Things like this happen to black and brown people in this country every single day, and they talk about it, tweet about it, and write about it, but for more reasons than I can discuss intelligently in this small space, people who look like me - white people - often don't see, hear, or believe their stories."

If you want to be an ally, you must believe our stories.

You must be able to see the racism that drove what happened to a group of black women last weekend at a Pennsylvania golf club. Police were called after the club's white co-owner and his father accused the women of playing too slow and refusing to leave. The women, all club members, weren't arrested. Still, add "golfing while black" to the ever-growing list of things black people aren't allowed to do in peace.

Longtime civil rights activist and scholar Angela Davis once said, "In a racist society, it is not enough to be nonracist - we must be anti-racist." Claiming you aren't racist is meaningless; what matters is recognizing racism, calling it by its name, and working to eradicate it. A person who complains about their privilege is like a lottery winner grumbling about the burdens of money to a someone making minimum wage. Expect more eye rolls than sympathy.

These are days when racism is so blatant that a neo-Nazi group held a swastika burning - like a Klan cross-burning - last weekend in Georgia, and it generated scant attention. Racism is both emboldened and normalized; to push back is to defy and alter the status quo.

If someone is drowning, do you stand on the shore and ask what that person, who has more than enough to contend with, what you should do? Or, out of a sense of common decency and humanity, do you reach out to help?

People of color challenge racism everyday; we've never had a choice. Yet since we did not build, and fortify for centuries, a system of white supremacy as American as the Constitution, and as old as Plymouth Rock, we alone cannot be expected to undo it.

That, white people, is on you - and your privilege.

Renée Graham can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @reneeygraham

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Use your white privilege to fight racism - The Boston Globe

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"I'M WHITE. I have white privilege. I'm ashamed of it." I received this e-mail from a woman in Oregon, and its pained tone didn't surprise me at all. It was a response to my column about the destructive toll of white fear on black lives after two men were arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks for no other reason than being black.

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I believe that leaders need to not just talk about social justice, but ACT and have discussions that are tough but necessary, especially with our children.

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Ask teachers to describe the impact they hope to have on their students, and most will eventually say something along these lines: I want my students to grow into responsible citizens. I want my students to participate in society in an active, productive way.

And maybe: I want my students to change the world.

But how many of us know how to make that happen, really? Can we explicitly teach students how to change the world? If this question has been whispering in the back of your mind, the resources in this collection will help.

What is social justice, and how does it fit into the curriculum?

The National Association of Social Workers defines social justice as "the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities." To study social justice is to learn about the problems that dramatically impact quality of life for certain populations, and how people have worked to solve those problems.

If you teach social studies, you'll have no trouble finding direct curricular links to social justice. The National Curriculum Standards for the Social Studies includes Civic Ideals and Practices as one of its 10 Themes of Social Studies, and this includes an emphasis on learning how to get involved in influencing public policy. In history and social studies class, social justice teaching is a natural fit.

In other content areas, teachers disagree over whether social justice has a place. We put ourselves in a vulnerable position by exploring issues that are seen as more controversial than others (a topic I will get into in the next section), and some teachers prefer to completely steer clear of those kinds of complications. For others, social justice was a driving force in why they became teachers, and they weave it into whatever content they are teaching. If you choose to address some or all of these issues in your classroom, the next section offers some tips for doing it effectively.

Some Advice for Teaching Social Justice

As an undergraduate, I served as a student counselor for three years and a resident assistant (RA) for one. I regularly delivered workshops on social justice topics, and I learned a few important lessons along the way. Here are some things to keep in mind when studying social justice issues with your students:

Make getting to know students a key component of any social justice teaching. If you and your students don't spend time examining your own backgrounds, biases, and beliefs, you will be missing an essential component of any social justice curriculum. We all view every social justice issue through the lens of our own experience, and these different lenses can block our growth and learning if we aren't aware of them. If we fine-tune our self-awareness, our individual lenses can richly inform classroom conversations and help us understand issues on a much deeper level, directly from each other.

Know that not all students feel the same way about these issues. Most, if not all, of these resources have been created from a pretty liberal, progressive viewpoint. For example, one of the lessons in the Learning for Justice (formerly known as Teaching Tolerance) series described below is on Confronting Unjust Laws. The lesson uses California's Proposition 8 as an example of an unjust law. But not all of your students (or their families) will see a law like Prop 8 as unjust. In fact, some may strongly oppose same-sex marriage. That doesn't mean you can't talk about controversial issues; in fact, teaching students how to respectfully discuss an issue with people who don't see things the same way is a lesson that will serve them for the rest of their lives.

Familiarize yourself with the material before teaching. Sometimes we just skim materials before we teach. With social justice topics, this would be a mistake. Not knowing exactly what's in all of your teaching materials, including the texts or videos you and your students will be looking at, can leave you vulnerable to problems when unexpected content pops up.

Keep your administrator in the loop. As with any potentially controversial lesson, it is essential that you talk to your administrator about it ahead of time. Show the curricular connections between your planned lessons and the standards you're teaching. Talk about potential problems or objections that may come up and how you both plan to address them. That way, if your administrator gets a phone call from a concerned parent, she or he won't be blindsided.

Featured Resources

When I set out to find good resources for social justice teaching, I was looking for classroom-ready materials, lesson plans with supplementary texts or videos that would prompt students to learn about, think about, and talk about social justice issues. I also hoped to find some that would actually teach students about activism, about how a citizen zeroes in on a problem, formulates a solution, then does the grassroots work necessary to see that solution come to life.

Some of these resources fit the bill perfectly, especially the first one on the list. Others do not include lesson plans at all, but serve such an important and innovative role in social justice education, I thought they were essential to include here.

Learning for Justice

This award-winning organization (formerly known as Teaching Tolerance) comes up most often any time social justice teaching is discussed. There's lots to explore on their site, including the Classroom Resources section, which is loaded with lesson plans and other resources teachers can use for free in their classrooms. One of these lessons is Confronting Unjust Practices, where students learn about the anti-segregation actions taken by the Freedom Riders and the attack on one of these buses in Anniston, Alabama (pictured above).

Other lessons from this library include What is Ageism?, Unequal Unemployment, and What Makes a Family? Lessons are available for elementary, middle, and high school students.

DoSomething.org

No lesson plans here: DoSomething.org is an outstanding organization whose goal is to support the work of young people who want to make a difference in their world. Students browse through a big list of campaigns, public education and activism projects students can launch right in their own communities, and choose one or more that they'd like to participate in. Once they have finished a campaign, students submit a photo or video to prove they completed the required steps. This entry makes them eligible to win prizes, including scholarships. Currently, only U.S. students are eligible for these scholarships, but DoSomething.org is expanding into other countries as well.

Although this site will not help you do any direct instruction about social justice, it provides incredible opportunities for students to actively participate in social justice projects. Most campaigns are just right for high school students, and some would be appropriate for middle schoolers as well. Some topics may be considered risque, so review the content before introducing it to students.

On a related note, DoSomething.org is the organization where Katia Gomez, the college student who started her own school in Honduras (featured in the first Cult of Pedagogy documentary last year), got her start. One more bit of trivia that totally doesn't matter but might if you are a Melrose Place fan: DoSomething.org was co-founded by 90's heartthrob Andrew Shue. Squeee!!

The Global Oneness Project

The Global Oneness Project offers a beautiful collection of multicultural films, photo essays, and articles that "explore cultural, social, and environmental issues with a humanistic lens." Many of the featured stories are paired with a lesson plan for high school or college classrooms, aligned with Common Core and national standards.

One such pairing starts with the film Amar, which follows a young Indian boy living in a high-poverty neighborhood through a typical day that includes rising before dawn to do one of his two jobs and attending school. The accompanying lesson plan is called A Day in the Life, which has students examine the film and other resources related to the economic situation in India.

The films are truly stunning. This collection doesn't include explicit teachings in any kind of civics or grassroots activism, but it will provide students with a deep understanding of lives completely unlike their own. And that kind of empathy is one of the most important building blocks for any kind of social justice action.

Pushing the Edge: Social Justice Resources Collection

Educator Greg Curran's podcast covers a range of educational topics, but quite a few episodes circle around issues of social justice. Recently, he curated these resources into a Social Justice Resources Collection. These episodes will be mainly useful for teachers to educate themselves about social justice education: what complications and questions come up, helpful do's and don'ts, and why it's worth it. He interviews practicing teachers and administrators who are walking the walk with social justice teaching. Listening to them will give you a template from which to build your own practice.

Here's an example of one episode, where Curran interviews Nakisha Hobbs, principal of the Village Leadership Academy, a k-8 social justice school in Chicago.

GLSEN: Educator Resources

For teachers who want to include consideration of LGBT issues in their study of social justice, a great source for materials is GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network. offers a nice collection of educator guides and lesson plans.

Here are a few examples: The ThinkB4YouSpeak Guide for Educators includes lesson plans, resources, and tips for teachers for addressing anti-LGBT language in the 6-12 classroom. Unheard Voices is a collection of audio interviews with "individuals who bore witness to or helped shape LGBT history in some way." And the Day of Silence Guide shows educators how to run a Day of Silence awareness campaign in their schools.

Educational Video Center

I love this idea: The Educational Video Center teaches students the skills of documentary filmmaking, telling important stories in the name of social justice. Although the EVC holds after-school workshops only for students in New York City, they do offer professional development for teachers anywhere who want to learn how to teach these skills to their own students.

Alumni of the EVC have created documentaries on everything from criminal justice to domestic violence to mental health. You can view a collection of trailers for student-created documentaries here.

The Two Dollar Challenge

The Two Dollar Challenge is a challenge issued to people who want to make an impact on poverty. The challenge is simple: For 5 days, live on just $2 per day, publicizing the complexities of global poverty and helping to raise funds for a partner organization.

What's most striking about this organization is their emphasis on cultivating a deep respect for people affected by poverty and raising participants' awareness of their own privilege. One look at the project's code of conduct shows just how serious they are about that mission: "At all times participants must respect those nearby who are truly in need. If at any time those taking the Challenge are using resources which are valuable for indigent residents in the area this action must be re-evaluated."

Anti-Defamation League

The ADL's collection of lesson plans explore topics in categories like gender issues, sexism, ableism, religious bigotry, and racism. For example, What is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?, a lesson for high school students, has students study and discuss the impact of zero-tolerance policies in schools, statistics on the connection between school suspensions and the juvenile justice system, and their own school discipline policy. The end of the lesson offers students a choice of next steps for taking action on this issue. Lessons are available for preschool through high school.

Update: Since publishing this post, a few readers have pointed out that some of ADL's other website content (separate from this curriculum) takes a strong stance on issues relating to Israel and may offend some users. I still feel that this curriculum contains incredibly valuable lessons on very recent events that you won't find anywhere else, but this reinforces my second and third points above: Know your audience, and read through the materials carefully. For more details on this issue, please read the comments below. This article may also shed some light on the topic.

Further Reading

Stirring Up Justice
Laurel Schmidt, Education Leadership, May 2009
Explores the value and process of teaching students about activism. Offers a template for how to engage students in authentic conversations about difficult issues, ask themselves what they can do about social justice issues, consider ways they have already acted in the past, study how other kids and young adults have successfully solved problems, and participate in their own social justice projects.

Turning Current Events Into Social Justice Teaching
Jinnie Spiegler, Edutopia, January 6, 2016
Spiegler, the curriculum director for the Anti-Defamation League (the first resource in this post) offers advice on teaching social justice topics in a way that's both sensitive and productive.

Educolor Resources
Educolor, an organization dedicated to an equitable, just education for everyone, maintains this list of books, movies, articles, and websites that will educate teachers and students on issues of social justice, especially as it pertains to educational equity.

The Best Teacher Resources Sites for Social Justice
Larry Ferlazzo, Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day, July 1, 2008
A big list of resources related to social justice education.
What Are Your Favorite Social Justice Resources?
This is by no means an exhaustive list. If you have a resource you like to use for teaching about social justice, please share it in the comments below. ♦

Keep in touch.
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A Collection of Resources for Teaching Social Justice

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Want your students to actively engage in addressing inequality? Explore this annotated bibliography of resources for teaching students about social justice.

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Cooper, C.W. (2010). Educational leaders as cultural workers: Engaging families and school communities through transformative leadership. In S.D. Horsford (Ed.), New Perspective in Educational Leadership: Exploring Social, Political, and Community Contexts and Meaning (pp. 173-195). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Dantley, M, E. & Tillman, L, C. (2010). Social justice and moral transformative leadership. In C. Marshall & M. Oliva (Eds.), Leadership for Social Justice: Making Revolution in Education (2nd ed.) (pp. 19-34). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon

Gardner, J. W. (2000). The nature of leadership. In M. Fullan (Ed.), The Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership (pp. 3-12). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Peters, A.L. (2010). Rethinking transformational leadership in schools: The influence of people, place, and process on leadership practice. In S.D. Horsford (Ed.), New Perspective in Educational Leadership: Exploring Social, Political, and Community Contexts and Meaning (pp. 29-46). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Sergiovanni, T. (2000). Leadership as stewardship: “who’s serving who?” In The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership (pp. 269–286). San Francisco, CA.