What is social justice? Why is it important for our classrooms?

For this particular post, I had to find an article about social justice and why it is important in classrooms. The article that I found was "Texts, Talk...and Fear?" by Delane Bender-Slack.  Since the definition of social justice varies, Bender-Slack decided to conduct a study consisting of 22  ELA teachers in 15 different public and private schools to discover how they defined social justice, why they taught it, and what texts they used to teach it. Her results revealed similar interpretations ranging from "Doing what's fair" to "Inclusion for everyone" (Bender-Slack 185). The definition that I think best sums up social justice is a combination of both interpretations mentioned above. Social justice is all about treating students fairly and embracing differences. It's about teaching students that they can still get along with each other even if they have differing viewpoints. 

There are many reasons why social justice may be taught in the classroom, but the main reason is to promote awareness and teach students about becoming good citizens.  As students go out into the real world, teachers want to prepare them for some of the things they might experience. They want students to be equipped with knowledge regarding their surroundings and ensure that they treat others the same way that they want to be treated.

While the article provided multiple ways in which social justice can be taught, I think that there is no correct way. It ultimately depends on the students and the location of the school. Some of the teachers in the article had great ideas about how to teach social justice, but I disagreed with them that students  were not in a position to act and that girls were incapable of changing the world. I think that in order to teach social justice, teachers need to believe in it themselves. There is absolutely no point in teaching it if teachers don't practice what they preach.  If I was to teach social justice I would keep students informed on current events and have them come up with solutions to social issues. Even though it may appear that students can't do anything about a social injustice, chances are that they probably can and we do not give them enough credit.