social Justice

I found two articles for Social Justice.  Both come with a different perspective.   One was a bulky document from the NCTE.  It gives a brief and gave a generic definition of social justice.  The document was good for involving students into the finding the meaning of social justice.  For every section of the document there is a K-12 activities/assignments section.  It gives great questions to bring up to students to get them thinking.  For example, the first one has questions like: ask students what social justice means, have students find examples in their lives, ask why it's important, and there are many more.  I guess the thing I found most important about this article was the part that it lists all the different forms of possible discriminations groups: race, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, age, appearance, ability, national origin, language, spiritual beliefs, size, sexual orientation, social class, economic circumstances, environment, ecology, culture, and the treatment of animals.  I guess I am always mindful to the more common groups, but it is good to remember that there are so many other groups besides race and sexual orientation to remember.  The other article I read was "Introduction: Creating Classrooms for Equity and Social Justice."  This article was a little easier to read and was more of a overview.  It talked about making the classroom feel safe for all students.  It also explained that teachers should be mindful of what they are teaching, for example, if you do a unit on Columbus and his discoveries, you might also talk about the other cultures involved.  It wasn't just the white Europeans that were in America.  There were natives that were in this area at the exact same time.  As a teacher we should talk about their lives as well, and not forget about a whole group of people. The rest of the article talks about making sure all students have an equal chance at learning.