Making The Case

"All new information must be coupled with existing funds of knowledge in order to be learned." - Zaretta Hammond

We must connect to the existing schema in our students' brains to promote learning. This happens well through building projects around topics that show up in students' lives in meaningful ways. The students have developed schema and a set of assumptions around most of these social justice topics by the nature of having to deal with them or interact with them regularly.

"It is literally neurobiologically impossible to think deeply about things that you don't care about." - Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Social justice topics engage student emotions which fuels their thinking. The learning sticks when students engage relevant topics that spark interest, curiosity and feelings. Check out more on that here.

"As for students, research has shown that people do better at a task—whether that task is spelling, hitting a curve ball, or playing the viola—if they know why they're doing it in the first place." - Dan Pink

Local, community-centered social justice topics are loaded with purpose, one of the key ingredients for motivation. Students make clear, direct connections between the learning and the world surrounding them. And those connections drive deeper engagement with both the issues and the learning targets.

For all the reasons above, this is NOT about just doing a justice-themed project at the end of the year. This is about choosing to put topics of justice central within your curriculum. Check out Planning & Prep to see how.