From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. last Saturday, the halls of Mission High School were filled not with 15 to 18-year olds, but with 400 teachers and educators attending the Teachers 4 Social Justice’s (T4SJ) 5th annual educator’s conference. With this year’s theme of Teaching Social Justice: An Act of Revolution, people came from the Bay Area and beyond to gather resources, attend workshops and be inspired.
Itself an inspiration, the conference sprung from a desire to make silenced voices heard, said Karen Zapata of T4SJ. The former teacher explained that for too long educators have been talked at rather than listened to.
“We’ve given them a space to share their experiences and to learn,” Zapata said.
For Tim Nicholas, a student at San Francisco State University working toward a Master of Education, the learning experience was “very enjoyable.” He said at one session he learned about holding school officials accountable for showing how well their institutions are meeting conditions for quality learning.
Also at that workshop was Kim Knox, a community educator. For her, the conference hit its high note when Linda Christiansen, the keynote speaker, talked about teaching as a revolutionary act.
“I remember her saying that words are power, and that if we’re gong to teach a standard language, then we must understand the roots of that language,” Knox said.
Hours after she had given her speech, Christiansen was sitting at a booth promoting both her book, “Reading, Writing and Rising Up” and her project, Rethinking Schools. A nonprofit publisher, Rethinking Schools advocates reform of public schools. They stress a commitment to social justice, with emphasis on the issues of race and urban schools, Christiansen detailed. On top of teaching full time, she said she does Rethinking Schools to regain her confidence.
Christiansen further told Beyond Chron that during her three decades of teaching, her confidence had been shattered when students were victims of social injustice. Teaching made her a politician, she said, adding that her core belief in social justice teaching is that educators must show students how systems and structures of power operate and then show them how to dismantle them.
This dismantling of power stuck a chord with Beta Bhasin, who teaches outdoor science to children at the Marin Headlands. Social justice is a hot topic at their campus, she said, particularly as it pertains to students of color and students for which English is not the primary language.
We as educators and community members need to give them a sense of empowerment by instilling in them that access to a good education is their basic right, said Bhasin.
To that end, Christiansen said in her speech that she discovered through her many years as an educator that teaching children to be literate is not enough.
“While it is important to give all students access to the academic knowledge they need to participate in advanced educational settings, I must also teach students how to read politicians, schools, work places, welfare offices, and Jenny Craig ads,” she said. “I [must] show them how they could intersect that power and use it rather than letting it humble or shame them.
While Christensen spoke of giving children the tools they need, Mat Schwarzman, director of the Crossroads Project, spoke at his booth of giving tools to teachers. A first time participant of the T4SJ conferences, Schwarzman sold copies of his new book, the Beginner’s Guide to Community-Based Arts. As he explained it, the book is one part graphic novel and one part resource guide. It features case studies of different artists and, in the form of comics, shows readers how to respond to their community contexts and needs, he continued.
Schwarzman said not only was he was pleased with the day’s turnout, but he also was pleasantly surprised by the number of social activists involved in the arts.
A few feet down from Schwarzman was fellow artist and first time attendee, Emunah Gupta, with Liberation Ink. Selling t-shirts and bags that she helped design, Gupta said she thought her worker-owned apparel printing and design collective was a perfect fit for the conference.
“We were created to fund social justice organizing, so it works,” said Gupta.
