Educating a Human Being, Not Just a Student

This week I have been thinking a lot about my role as an educator, and simply as a human, in stopping injustice.

I just finished teaching my unit on Night by Elie Wiesel, which we wrapped up by writing a mini research paper on current genocides. Over the course of this unit, my class participated in many discussions about the theme of bearing witness, and we explored how the questions about humanity Wiesel raises apply to our own lives. Listening to my students' thoughts about their role in stopping prejudice and social injustices was so inspiring. Their passion, empathy, and intelligence becomes so evident during these discussions, and it is so cool to see the light come on when a student realizes that they can connect, and that they play an important role in the way our society functions.

Many of my students were shocked to find out that genocide still occurs in the world today, and were upset that they didn't know about a lot of the instances of genocide and oppression that we learned about. I admitted regularly that I did not know about many of these instances either, and this stemmed some great discussions about WHY we don't know these things, and what that says about our society.

As the unit progressed we got into discussions about race, religion, gender, bullying, ect., and the students shared their experiences and thoughts about these subjects on a regular basis. I think that it is important to cultivate these types of discussions within a classroom, because education is about so much more than just learning content. I personally believe that, as educators, one of the greatest things we can do to prevent social injustices is to help our students see that they do play a role in preventing prejudice, and that they can make a difference.

I recently read an article that addressed this idea, and talked about ways that you can foster an environment within your classroom that supports these types of discussions. At the end of the article, it states, "Strom and Nelson say young people are moral philosophers. 'They care about the world they live in,' Nelson adds. 'They want to belong. They want to do right. They want to make a difference.' Help students show their smarts, not only to you or to their classmates but also to themselves" (Smith 2006). I love this statement, because I completely agree with it! We all want to live in a world where we feel safe, and unfortunately that is not the state of our society at the present moment. But our students want this too, and they want to talk about how people can make a difference! I believe that if we all work to create an environment where students can explore these ideas together, we will all benefit. So that's what I'm going to keep attempting to do!