Source: Public School Insights – A Wrenching Scene

Teaching has moved far beyond what was once imagined as a way to save our children, our country and empower learners to be more than we were. Nancy Flanagan (Teacher in a Strange Land) shares her thoughts on the diminishing value of social justice:

Human rights—civil liberties and a good education—followed by the right to enjoy the benefits of your own hard work, no matter who your family is or where you were born? To freely choose a goal of personal enrichment (plumbing, evidently) or a path of public service? Shouldn’t the blessings of liberty be equally available to every American child? Isn’t the nation happier and more secure when everyone has a stake in our economy, a real shot at a good life?

Who are these people who are snarling around suggesting that creating schools and curriculums to address the learning needs of inner city poor kids is some kind of left-wing plot? If I’m not teaching—ultimately—toward social justice, toward improved opportunity for each of my students, then why would I teach at all? I certainly wouldn’t do it for the money.

Teaching and learning for social justice isn’t approved in public schools today, is it? Some are too focused on the academics, on pushing a lock-step approach to curriculum and teaching that leaves little time for social justice issues. The new efficiency is getting old, this efficiency of ensuring our children are learning like automatons, constantly having information and competencies inputted into them. But, human beings demand far beyond that, at some time realizing that something has gone wrong.

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