Learning to teach in a “World Not Yet Finished”: Social justice education in the middle level preservice teacher classroom

Abstract

While many preservice teachers turn to teaching because they believe in the power of education in the pursuit of social justice, they also lack concrete ideas for how to bring social justice education into the middle-school classroom. With the goal of preparing social justice educators in mind, teacher educators must find ways to transform these abstract ambitions into concrete skills. In this article, I present my approach to preparing social justice educators in my teacher education classroom, including (a) example learning outcomes and classroom activities to build preservice teachers’ foundational knowledge about the “why” and “what” of social justice education, (b) a process for developing social justice units using a framework called the “Three Phases of a Social Justice Unit,” and (c) example classroom activities to address common fears raised by preservice teachers as they learn about social justice education.