Teaching Social Justice in the Classroom

In the article "Of Mice and Marginalization", written by teacher Michelle Kenney, I read about an experienced high school English teacher's decision to change her curriculum after moving to a more conservative school.  Kenney likes to bring books of diversity and promoting social justice into her class and had planned to teach a unit on A Long Way Gone, "a memoir of a boy's experience as a child slave during the civil war in Sierra Leone".  The parents were uncomfortable with this choice and before long Kenney was offering the suggestion of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men instead.  The parents were very pleased with this choice, so Kenney moved forward. 

Many of the female student's were bothered by the only female character portrayed as manipulative, "kind of a slut", and of course dies in the story.  The Latino and African American students were put off by the one African American character was overwhelming weak physically.  Many of the students stopped coming to class and she had to talk them into returning.  When it came time for the essay on the book, the reports were dry and sometimes plagiarized. 

Kenney went on to teach A Raisin in the Sun more successfully.  The students once more were engaged and seemed to connect to the characters, which were more complex and determined to rise above their circumstances.

This article was interesting to me in that Kenney went against her own instincts as a teacher and brought in a book (though I admit, I love it) which didn't support her goals of teaching social justice through literature in her classroom.  She remembered the novel and thought it would work well, before looking at it from the viewpoint of an early 21st century teen.  I love classic literature and am looking forward to including works from the canon in my classroom.  However, I am going to have to take into consideration exactly what I want to teach.  It isn't enough to give a brief explanation and warning about taking into account the historical and social context of the time in which the work was written.  The students may not yet be capable of  keeping that in mind as they are fighting their way through a book which may represent many of the insurmountable obstacles the student has encountered.

I'm certainly not advocating tossing the classic books from our shelves.  I do think, however, we're going to have to look at them with fresh eyes.  There is the danger, of course, in being overly sensitive and depriving the students of great literature simply because some think they are offensive, violent, or vulgar.  We need to look at the character's carefully and see what they represent.  Also, we must take in the overall themes of the books and find if they follow with what we are trying to convey to the student.  Finally, whatever books we choose, we need to bring candid discussions in the classrooms where the students will feel at liberty to express their thoughts and opinions about the material, both positive and negative, since there is learning to be had in both.