Advocating for social justice outside of our classroom walls

Bethanne, Paola, Nate, Emme, and Ivette Team: Discussion Post

After listening to the podcast, watching Precious Knowledge, and reading through the articles, there are a few thoughts that stick out in my mind as I think about moving forward as an educator for social justice.  Students' lives are being negatively impacted because of the assumptions and beliefs others have of students and people of color. The stories of these students reminds me that we need to do more than our roles as a teacher in the classroom and school to work to attain social justice.  

The podcast Act Three: The Talking Cure stood out to me in particular: the school implemented restorative justice practices yet students from the school were prosecuted by an undercover cop who took matters out of hand.  Though the high school in New York had implemented restorative practices, the students still ended up affected and prosecuted by the world outside of the classroom walls.  During the summer we talked about the school to prison pipeline and various practices that could be implemented in our schools to work against that.  We talked about restorative justice and how that could help us fight against the school to prison pipeline at the school and classroom level.  How do we then fight the school to prison pipeline with still so other systems continuing discriminatory practices that target students of color and affect their lives dramatically?  

Further, the TUSD Ethnic Studies greatly benefited the Hispanic population with a 93% graduation rate, however the students lost the program after a long battle with political systems (school board and state level) and politicians. Though the teachers of the Raza program were providing a space to open the minds and hearts of young students, they had to face the racism of the community around that disagreed and misunderstood the beauty of the ethnic studies program.  What can we do to really bring about the change in the systems that negatively and dramatically affect the lives of our students?  We've talked about how to implement practices in our classroom to be social justice educators for our students but what can we do to, either in or out of the classroom, to bring about the change in society and the world that exists outside of our classroom walls?