Literacy for Social Justice Teacher Research Group

St. Louis, Missouri

Rogers, R., Mosley, M., & Kramer, M.A. & The Literacy for Social Justice Teacher Research Group (2009).

Designing Socially Just Learning Communities: Critical Literacy Across the Lifespan. NY: Routledge.

The Literacy for Social Justice Teacher Research Group is a grassroots,teacher-led professional development group committed to literacy education and advocacy as it relates to social justice in classrooms and communities.LSJTRG is committed to sustaining a group that includes a diversity of ideas, peoples and perspectives.

LSJTRG….Provides ongoing, professional development for

teachers across the lifespan focused on social justice. (2 x month)

Collaborates with multiple community groups. Hold annual events (summer institute/curriculum fair)

Grassroots, Volunteer/Teacher-Led

• Our group started in 2000-2001, co-founded by Rebecca Rogers and Mary Ann Kramer

• Intention is to provide a network for progressive educators in the St. Louis area

• Has grown to over 250 people on our listserv and approximately 10-12 people at meetings, 200 people at annual events

• Has received local and national attention. LSJTRG is part of TAG (Teacher Activist Group) -- a national network.

• We rely on community based fund-raisers, do not have funding source.

LSJTRG

Professional Development: What is and What could be

“What could be” Teacher led and long term Valuing community experiences Integration of research and

practice Teacher inquiry groupsStudy groups Teacher networks School based collectivesClassrooms and communities as

a site of pdCross traditional grade level

boundaries

“What is”

District-based

Conferences

University based teacher education

Periodic staff development days

“One teacher can do great things, a community of teachers can move a mountain.” -Nancy Atwell,1986

Popular Education Cycle

• Pose relevant questions• Research • Bring together different perspectives• Plan for Action• Act! • Reflect• Pose relevant questionshttp://www.highlandercenter.org/

Rogers, R., Mosley, M. & Kramer, M. & The LSJTRG. Designing Socially Just Learning Communities: A Lifespan Perspective on Critical Literacy

Chapter Topics: • Critical literacy and peace education with working class second

graders • Social action within the curriculum • Culturally relevant pedagogy • Gay and lesbian issues within the context of the journalism

curriculum• Feminist approaches to literature discussions • Critical literacy in a summer program with adolescents• Critical Literacy Lab in adult education• Literature discussion as social action in GED classroom • Popular Education, community organizing, adult literacy students • Cultural diversity and human origins with teacher education

students

Our Tools: Social Justice Education

• Building and Sustaining a Learning community

• Developing Critical Stances

• Critical Inquiry and Analysis

• Action, Advocacy and Social Change

Critical Inquiry and Analysis

Tool 1: Teacher Inquiry

Tool 2: Case Studies

Tool 3: Personal reflections, Literate Autobiographies and Positionalities

Tool 4: Reflecting on Group Processes and Dynamics

Teacher Inquiry as Stance

“we use the metaphor of stance to suggest both orientational and positional ideas, to carry allusions to the physical placing of the body as well as the intellectual activities and perspectives over time. In this sense, the metaphor is intended to capture the ways we see, and the lenses we see through as educators. Teaching is a complex activity that occurs within webs of social, historical, cultural, and political significance. Across the life span, an inquiry stance provides a kind of grounding within the changing cultures of school reform and

competing political agendas…” -Cochran Smith & Lytle, 2001, pp. 49-50

Developing Critical Stances

Tool 1: Reading widely and deeply

Tool 2: Making connections between local and global contexts

Tool 3: Seeking out multiple, non-dominant perspectives

Tool 4: Seeking out relationships between sources of information “connecting the dots”

Example: Privatization of Schools

We focused our inquiry on the privatization of schools and learned more about for-profit charters

and state take-overs of school districts.

A Public Letter:

Here, in St. Louis, and in other metropolitan areas, we face an ongoing assault on public education. Over the last four months, our group has been reading, researching and discussing the privatization of public schools that takes the forms of for-profit charter schools, school commercialism initiatives, performance contracting, out-sourcing of jobs and vouchers. Tuition tax credits or “vouchers” are one example of the ongoing attack on public education. We want to stress the following points:

•     The Missouri Constitution prohibits using public money to support or maintain religious organizations or private schools.

•     Tax subsidies reduce the state’s tax revenues and decrease the amount of money available for public schools.

•     Private schools selectively admit students based on disability, gender, race and religion.

Framing the issue of public education as a “choice” is clever because for many people who do not understand the politics of schools, “choice” is hard to argue with. Here’s the fundamental reason why "choice" is bad for schools: there will always be losers. Imagine if everyone exercised their choice to transfer to a “good/choice” school; at a certain point, they would have to turn students away because they are full.

-LSJTRGSt. Louis, MO

Action, Advocacy and Social Change

Tool 1:Taking Stock of Activist Experiences within the Group

Tool 2: Developing skills of Activism

Tool 3: Recognizing and valuing different roles within the group

Tool 4: Networking and Alliance Building

Tool 1: Experiences with Activism within the Group Community housing Educating for Change Curriculum Fair Women in Leadership Training VALUE training (student advocacy) Neighborhood stabilization VISTA program Breast Cancer AwarenessPicketing Refusal of privilege Organize with migrant workers Counter-recruitment Organizing for women’s rights within the Catholic church

Protest at union station Civil rights activist Voter registration drives Author/WritersQuestioning the status quo Committee on Racial EqualityFree speech movementWomen’s Movement Environmental Movement

Living values in personal and professional life Honoring all voices Feminist Majority Women’s Choice Rallies and Marches in DC Letter writing campaignsNAACPChild Assault Prevention Program Campus Acquaintance Rape Education Dismantling Racism Institute for Educators Participation in political campaigns Reauthorization of NCLB National Organization of Women Jobs with Justice Immigrant rights rallies Recycling Learning another language

Student Leadership Movement Civil Rights Movement Peace Movement Community Housing Movement

Why Activism and Social Action?

“Educators need to disrupt the notion that silence is patriotic and teach students that their rights as citizens in this society carry responsibilities – of participation, voice, and protest so that this can actually become a society of, by and for all of its citizens. Students (and teachers) need to learn that social action is fundamental to the workings of their lives.”

(Hackman, 2005, pp. 106)

Tool 4: Alliance Building

Educating for Change Curriculum Fair

Teacher Activist Groups New York, the New York Collective of Radical Educators San Fransisco, Teachers 4 Social Justice

Chicago, Teachers for Social JusticeOakland, California Education not IncarcerationPortland, Oregon Portland Area Rethinking SchoolsPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania Coalition of Radical EducatorsLos Angeles, California Progressive Educators for Action Louisville, Kentucky Progressives Engaged in Struggle Support NetworkSt. Louis, The Literacy for Social Justice Teacher Research Group

******Rethinking Schools issue 20 (2), 2005/2006

TAG/NNAT -- Teacher Activist Groups/National Network of Activist Teachers (formed in 2007)

Questions to Consider….• What are the pressing issues in your

classrooms, schools, districts, cities, and programs?

• Who are the stakeholders in each of these contexts, and who would you bring together to explore these problems?

• What groups already exist in your area that you might join or build a coalition with?

For more information and to download articles about our group, visit our website:

http://www.umsl.edu/~lsjtrg/