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 is”
District-based
Conferences
University based teacher
education
Periodic staff development days
“What could be”
Teacher led and long term
Valuing community experiences
Integration of research and
practice
Teacher inquiry groups
Study groups
Teacher networks
School based collectives
Classrooms and communities
as a site of pd
Cross traditional grade level
boundaries
“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 questions
http://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, nondominant 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, outsourcing 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.
-LSJTRG
St. 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 Awareness
Picketing
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/Writers
Questioning the status quo
Committee on Racial Equality
Free speech movement
Women’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 campaigns
NAACP
Child 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 Justice
Oakland, California Education not Incarceration
Portland, Oregon Portland Area Rethinking Schools
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Coalition of Radical Educators
Los Angeles, California Progressive Educators for Action
Louisville, Kentucky Progressives Engaged in Struggle Support Network
St. 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/