Antiracist Education: Changing the Secondary English Class Agenda

The article linked in the image examines teachers' perspectives on using multicultural literature in their classrooms. The authors conducted a study with 28 teachers from diverse backgrounds and asked them about their experiences with using multicultural literature, the challenges they faced, and their beliefs about the importance of including diverse texts in their curriculum.  When I begin teaching, I am going to make it a priority to read novels that challenge the "normal" classroom readings. For example, I hope to include rewrites on "classic" readings like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. By including novels that challenge the canon, I will be able to expose my students to a more diverse educaion.

The authors argue that students often view people in the past as "stupid" or "ignorant" because they lack the necessary historical context to understand the motivations and beliefs of people from different eras. The authors propose a three-stage framework for promoting historical contextualization in the classroom, which involves helping students recognize their own biases, teaching them about the historical context of different eras, and encouraging them to critically analyze primary sources from different time periods. The article emphasizes the importance of promoting historical contextualization as a means of helping students develop a deeper understanding of history and avoid presentism.

The article discusses the challenges of language representation in legal institutions, specifically in the context of Spanish-English contact. The author argues that there is a need to understand the role of bilingualism in legal institutions and how it affects representation. The article examines the historical and social context of bilingualism in the United States and the ways in which legal institutions have responded to language diversity. The author uses case studies to illustrate the challenges of bilingualism in legal settings, including issues of translation and interpretation, and the impact of language barriers on access to justice. The article concludes with a call for legal institutions to embrace bilingualism and to develop strategies to ensure that Spanish-English contact is represented accurately and fairly in institutional memory. 

The article explores the experiences of a full-time teacher who attempted to integrate social justice teaching into her curriculum. The author examines the challenges faced by the teacher, including institutional constraints, resistance from students and colleagues, and the complexity of addressing issues of social justice in the classroom. The study is based on the teacher's reflections, classroom observations, and interviews with the teacher and her colleagues. The author highlights the teacher's strategies for overcoming obstacles and promoting social justice, such as using literature and multimedia resources, creating a safe space for discussion, and framing discussions in terms of critical thinking and inquiry.

The article argues that twenty-first-century literacy requires more than traditional literacy skills. It involves the ability to integrate knowledge from various sources, including music, video, online databases, and other media. It requires critical thinking about the information that can be found instantly throughout the world, participation in the new communication and information technologies that enable, and increasingly demand, collaboration. Also, it requires an understanding of the perspectives of others, a historical grounding, and seeing the interconnectedness of economic and ecological systems.