By: Anna Black-Brownawell 04/27/2020
I am currently a homebound/hospital special education teacher in the 24th largest school district in the United States. I serve as an ESL instructor on a online platform for overseas with a TEFL certification. I am currently seeking an endorsement here in the United States for my state that I teach. While taking on line courses at one of the online universities certain topics came up. I started wanting to research the topics of social justice as it pertains to refugees and ESL students. I also wanted to explore how social justice impacted culture inclusion. Many students come from over seas to the united states as immigrants or as refugees. Being a teacher of a vast an array of students from various walks of life I feel compelled to make it apart of my vocation which I have already but even more so become an advocate for social justice and culture inclusion especially for refugees.
I started doing my assignments for my TESOL class for my online university and one of the assignments was learning about the culture of a language while learning the culture of the Arabic language I came across so many articles of Syrian refugees fleeing a warzone. My heart sank and I began to weep at the poor conditions the families and children are in and I got angry. I realized while being angry would not solve anything I decided to do some more research. I started looking up ways teachers could be educated about refugees. I came across a website called the UN Agency Teaching About Refugees UNHCR The UN Refugee Agency USA.(2020).Teaching About Refugees. Retrieved March 22,2020 from,https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/teaching-about-refugees.html
On the UNHCR website it talks about ways you can help your students that might be refugees. It gives ideas and guidelines about culture sensitivity and key words for teachers and colleagues in the school to help with teaching and get familiar with how to teach students that have had trauma in their lives from war and other traumatic events. Teaching children that have fled from missal attacks and bombs has a very difficult challenge because you as a teacher need to provide a safe environment to feel secure and learn and to also allow the learning the experience from you to heal them emotionally. Learning in an atmosphere that is safe and stable will provide healing for your students. As teachers we may not can change the past but we can be an advocate of change for the future.
In another research endeavor of developing teachers to learn about social change I found an educational inquiry online from a article titled Developing Teachers as Agents of Inclusion and Social Justice. In summary this article discusses policies and laws are a key factor in the way that higher learning level institutions teach or do not teach social justice. Along with social justice is culture inclusion. Society looks to places of learning to guide and foster the ideology of culture. If people from a different culture do not conform or assimilate societies often times look down on immigrants that come from different countries and cultures. The article suggests that teachers are the key to any country in teaching and being an advocate for social justice and culture inclusion. It is through learning about laws and policies that guide teachers to teach the knowledge of this. If teachers do not but teach non culture inclusion then there is not global unit of culture inclusion thus it impacts other societies and has a trickle affect.
In truth I want to teach others about social justice and educate other ESL teaches about refugees. As ESL teachers we must become an advocate for your students and be promoters of culture inclusion and social justice. The impact that you make as an educator for your ESL students whether refugees are not and promoting culture inclusion, social justice and equality makes or breaks and shapes your students future. Remember teachers are the pillar in which students gain and attain knowledge. The knowledge and what they have experience shapes their world and our world together in which we live and encompasses both positive and negative outcomes, so the apple of change is in your hands as their teacher.
References
Nataša Pantić & Lani Florian (2015) Developing Teachers as Agents of Inclusion and Social Justice, Education Inquiry, 6:3, 27311, DOI: 10.3402/edui.v6.27311,Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/edui.v6.27311
UNHCR The UN Refugee Agency USA.(2020).Teaching About Refugees. Retrieved March 22,2020 from,
https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/teaching-about-refugees.html