FEBRUARY 8, 2017

Amber Strong Makaiau

Making Our Stance on Social Justice Education
Explicit

Social justice education is at the heart of the work I do in schools, and in thepast couple of days, one of my mentors, Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng, reminded me of
the importance of coming together with others to make this mission explicit.
In correspondence from her position at the Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for
Peace and Conflict Resolution, she called on various organizations to poststatements on their websites, social media platforms and other spaces ofinfluence and connection that directly speak to their commitment to education
for the enhancement of civil liberties, social justice and peace. In this message,
she encouraged all of us to explicitly state:

We are part of an American institution of culture andconscience. Our mission speaks broadly of thecommitment to human rights, civil liberties,
environmental stewardship and positive peace. Inorder to nourish these commitments, we seek todeepen our understanding of one another and ourcommon humanity, to learn of and teach about thepowerful experiences and universal needs of myriadand diverse peoples. We are firmly against any actionthat discriminates against or unfairly targets
refugees, immigrants, women, native peoples, peopleof color, Arabs and Muslims, because such actions
undermine the integrity of the nation and fail toreflect the moral courage that is owed to its people.

https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/making-our-stance-on-social-justice-education-explicit

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Making Our Stance on Social Justice Education Explicit | Learning for Justice

I instantly felt that, by communicating this clear and common stance inwriting across the communities and organizations we work in, our collective
capacity for working together to create positive change grew stronger.
This is the power of a shared message, and it is one of the core reasons I am
deeply attracted to Teaching Tolerance’s Social Justice Standards. “Thestandards provide a common language and organizational structure,”
Teaching Tolerance states. “Teachers can use them to guide curriculum
development and administrators can use them to make schools more just,equitable and safe.” Through their theoretically sound origins and wellarticulated continuum of engagement, the language embedded within the fourdomains of the standards—Identity, Diversity, Justice and Action—has thepotential to link social justice educators across grade levels, geographic
regions, diverse populations and public and private settings.
Just imagine what would happen if state departments of education andindependent schools across the nation used these standards to reframe thedaily experiences of students and teachers. Perhaps we would move one step
closer to ensuring “the basic [educational] need for the whole spectrum of
thinking/feeling competencies to be taught to all students, regardless ofgender and other cultural variables,” as anti-bias education pioneer Emily
Style writes in “Curriculum as Window and Mirror.” Maybe then, all of ouryoung people would have access to both the critical content and social
emotional approach to teaching and learning that is necessary for building amore empathetic, inclusive and just society.
With this in mind, my colleagues and I at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa’s(UHM) College of Education Institute for Teacher Education (ITE) Secondary
Program decided to use the Social Justice Standards to redesign our teacher
education program. Grounded in a commitment to creating an equitable andsocially just society, this program will provide our teacher candidates with atransformative learning experience. Specifically, the program will help
candidates develop a deep wisdom for teaching. That teaching will be rooted inplace and community action, which will in turn serve as a foundation forsparking their future students’ wonder and imagination about how to live inthe world. The program will also prepare teachers who will contribute tocultivating schools and learning experiences that provide students with
opportunities to create a compassionate democratic society.
With the Social Justice Standards at the foundation of our program redesign,
https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/making-our-stance-on-social-justice-education-explicit

we have been able to come together with a clear and common language for

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Making Our Stance on Social Justice Education Explicit | Learning for Justicecreating program activities, coursework, curriculum and assessments.
Additionally, we have a collective voice for communicating what we mean bysocial justice education to the university faculty, teacher candidates, K–12
teachers and students, and larger communities that we work with.
Just as Dr. Soetoro-Ng and my colleagues in the UHM ITE Secondary Program
have done, now is the time for all of us to make our collective stance on social
justice education explicit. With resources like the Social Justice Standards, wehave the tools we need to, as Teaching Tolerance encourages, “plan and carryout collective action against bias and injustice in the world.” In the words ofMary Kawena Pukui, "‘A‘ohe hana nui ke alu ‘ia:” No task is too big when done
together by all.

Makaiau is an associate specialist at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Collegeof Education Institute for Teacher Education Secondary Program and thedirector of curriculum and research at the University of Hawai‘i Uehiro
Academy for Philosophy and Ethics in Education.

https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/making-our-stance-on-social-justice-education-explicit

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