Socail Justice Conference

Today was conference day. It was on Social Justice, social change. We had three speakers.

The first speaker was Pat Tompson who spoke on Changing Schools Alternative Aproaches that Promote Social Justice.  She spoke about how teachers are so bogged down by policy and curriculum that we forget about our students.  We need to teach to the needsof our students, engage them with big ideas and let them take from it, involve the community and relevant issues.


http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3856484/Speaker_1_Social_Justice


Speaker Two was Dr Kevin Alderson who spoke about sexual and gender identity in schools. He started off talkig about gender in society and how even as babies how we force gender idenity on children.  He talked about the history of human rights on slavery, womwn voting and same sex marriages. He then went into some quotes from his research showing that even in cities with a rich accepting gay culture such as Montreal, kids do not feel safe and accepted in their schools. He went over statistics of the icidence of violence inflicted on students thought to be gay, lesbian etc.
The advice he gave was to have a no tolerance policy, show flags of different cultures including GLBT to show acceptance of diversity, start challenging the language we here at school ``that`s so gay`to thats so different, explain where the language came from and use inclusive language such as ``Are you dating someone`` instead of using gender.
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3856858/speaker_2_Social_Justice_


Speaker 3 was I have put my jot notes down of what I got from the lecture.
S. Nombuso Dlamini

everyday we can find differences and diversity in the world around us...forming new ideas and looking at ourselves and discover what is new about us...reconfiguring newness...cultural relations are a balance of old and new
studies around cities newness has a lot to do with geography but we need to look beyond that...connected through technology, cosmopolitism-challanges on the notion of boundries
changing name-correct pronouniation of name-ppl in that space need to change to accept the new name that belongs in that space and not see it as foreign
some ppl change name completely to be accepted (conformity) but we shoud embrace differences
newness can be a constant shift of examining everything around us
Teachers need up to date on the ways students want to be defined
institutions are places of conflict and inconsistancies
change can be like ghosts just because we cant see it it doesnt mean it is not there
what is excluded when we examine things is also important
use local newness as a teaching moment 

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3857039/speaker_3_social_justice

Overall I found the conference very general with no practical strategies offered.