SOCIAL JUSTICE COMPONENT
We define Social Justice as what is good or right between individuals or groups of people. We expect our students, our Champions of Truth, to honor Gandhi's call to arms of "Being the change we wish to see in the world" by teaching our students to be Agents of Change.
For our students we define an Agent of Change as any person with the skills to both research topics that they seek to change and to do something about it. The larger definition of an Agent of Change is a person who is able to see a problem, researches all sides of the problem, creates a plan of attack to remedy the problem, and then reflects on the action to gauge its effectiveness. The action may solve the problem or it may not but an Agent of Change is able to reflect on their action and adjust their efforts, if needed, toward improving our world.
While our Social Justice component is embedded in the discussions and curriculum students are exposed to on a daily basis we also have an Action Project. This project is an 8-step process that guides the students and the teachers toward truly becoming Agents of Change. This year we are focused on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Each grade-level is working together on a self selected goal. It is perfectly acceptable to have multiple grades working on the same goal because their efforts and results will be varied. It is always important to remember that as an elementary school our charge is to not just create global citizens but to remember that these citizens range in age from 5yrs to 10 or 11yrs old. We must make sure that the actions fit with their abilities; not always an easy task.
Our guiding framework for the Action Project is below as a pdf file. Please check it out!
For our students we define an Agent of Change as any person with the skills to both research topics that they seek to change and to do something about it. The larger definition of an Agent of Change is a person who is able to see a problem, researches all sides of the problem, creates a plan of attack to remedy the problem, and then reflects on the action to gauge its effectiveness. The action may solve the problem or it may not but an Agent of Change is able to reflect on their action and adjust their efforts, if needed, toward improving our world.
While our Social Justice component is embedded in the discussions and curriculum students are exposed to on a daily basis we also have an Action Project. This project is an 8-step process that guides the students and the teachers toward truly becoming Agents of Change. This year we are focused on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Each grade-level is working together on a self selected goal. It is perfectly acceptable to have multiple grades working on the same goal because their efforts and results will be varied. It is always important to remember that as an elementary school our charge is to not just create global citizens but to remember that these citizens range in age from 5yrs to 10 or 11yrs old. We must make sure that the actions fit with their abilities; not always an easy task.
Our guiding framework for the Action Project is below as a pdf file. Please check it out!
sj_10-11_-_action_project_framework_color.doc | |
File Size: | 37 kb |
File Type: | doc |