Introduction

“…teacher education for social justice is not merely activities, but a coherent and intellectual approach to the preparation of teachers that acknowledges the social and political contexts in which teaching, learning, schooling and ideas about justice have been located historically and the tensions among competing goals” (Cochran-Smith, 2010, p.3).

Conversations about oppression, marginalization, at-risk children, and the specific manifestations of these issues, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, et cetera, are neither novel nor unfamiliar in educational circles. Well-intentioned educators have grappled with how to address these issues for years. As university educators who teach within a social justice framework, we acknowledge these lived realities and the everyday effects they have on individuals. We also believe that there is a parallel perspective to this which is equally important to discuss: a strenuous and deliberate examination of privileges: what they are, who has them, how did that happen, and what does it mean in some lives? This ongoing conversation weaves its way through our work and writing. As R.W. Connell (1993) said: “An education that privileges one child over another is giving the privileged child a corrupted education, even as it gives him or her a social or economic advantage” (p. 15). We believe that to talk only about “the poor” or the “racially visible” or “the marginalized” without considering the overarching operations of privilege is to cast some people as Other (Delpit, 2012; Elia & Eliason, 2010; Daniel & Antoniw, 2018; Sanford, Jayme, & Monk, 2018) without interrogating the Us. While schools are often spoken of as places to “level the playing field” of social inequities, the reality for many students is that schools perpetuate marginalization and sometimes oppressions as reflections of the larger social structure of systemic inequities. At the same time, many schooling practices, including curricular practices and content, are based upon a specific set of values and knowledges that support and perpetuate a normative middle-class and Eurocentric view of the social world.

Issues of social justice appear in various provincial curricula, but are often, we might even say usually, taught sporadically (in the sense that it appears to be individual teachers who implement this pedagogy) and in isolation from a pedagogical discourse around issues of diversity. As teachers ourselves and as teachers of pre-service educators, we recognize the importance of creating pedagogical situations that empower ourselves and others, of demystifying the “master narrative” of our society, of clarifying how relations of domination subordinate and demarcate subjects according to their gender, ethnicity, race, class, sexuality, and myriad other indicators of “difference.” We must remember, however, that we can never speak for each other; we view the world around us from our own subject positions, always. The key, perhaps, is in “learning how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we all can flourish” (Lorde, 1984, page 112).

Teachers are held to a higher standard of behaviour than many members of the general (non-teaching) public, and perhaps we should be. Parents and guardians entrust us with their children. Students bring into our classrooms their cultures, races, identities, orientations, genders, socio-economic classes, religious or spiritual affiliations, abilities, language backgrounds, etc., and it is our job to teach all of them to the best of our ability, not just the kids who look like us, talk like us, pray like us, or come from the same communities that we do.

One of the most important things to remember is that this work is not about assigning guilt or blame; it is about understanding how things were in order to understand how things are, so that we can see and work toward how they could be. None of us are responsible for how things were, but we are each responsible for choosing how we will respond from this day forward. This is an ongoing – indeed, a lifelong – learning process. As Maya Angelou said: “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better” (ascribed, unsourced). Or, as Shrek said, “I’m like an onion. I have layers”. We all have layers – never-ending layers – and being a self-reflexive, critical-minded teacher will mean always being prepared to peel back another layer to look beneath.