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Social Justice in the Elementary Classroom brought up points for me that I had not previously considered. Ann Haley Mackenzie adresses the cultural differences and mentions the need to not just point out cultural differences in the classroom, but to synthesis those differences into the way that we teach and what we teach. She provided an example of two students who disagreed on the use of fossil fuels, and had the students look deeper into why they beleived what they did. One had come from a Native American tribe and the other had two parents who worked in the coal industry. Discovering the root of the problem allowed for the discussion to continue, addressing the creation of thousands of jobs with cleaner energy, as well as the preservation of nature's beautiful landmarks and dissapearing species.
She also addresses the need for activism among students, with children of anti-vaccinators having access to material that disproves that theory. Allowing students to look deeper into the falsified science, the 'dishonest, misleading, and irresponsible' doctor who published an article on it, and how the media published articles without inquiring further about the validity of it all can create a more information-based mindset. This information age that we are in means that we have access to endless information at our fingertips, and yet there is little done to fact check much of that information short of a lawsuit for slander. She finishes the article by providing a variety of topics that we can use in our future classrooms to promote social justice and allow activism and indivuality to help grow and better educate our youth.
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