As an educator, especially if you have a multicultural, diverse, or marginalized classroom, you have to go above and beyond teaching your "subject area" and teach your students about the world around them. This blog will likely contain more posts and examples for how to teach social justice in your classroom, so we'll call this an introduction. Introducing multicultural readings into your classroom can be tailoring your lessons to your students, or it can be introducing your all-white class to different viewpoints. Regardless of how privileged or marginalized your class is, you can still teach for social justice and encourage your class to question society and critically think about how society treats people based on race, language, nationality, sexuality, and gender. It's valuable to bring up controversial and sensitive topics such as abortion, police brutality, LGBT rights, racism,etc. However, simply handing out a reading and discussing it may not necessarily engage your students, so try analyzing the following songs in the classroom and relating them back to mainstream society. You could even have your students write their own songs as an assignment. After all, music is sometimes just poetry with a good beat added.
Link to Social Justice Songs:
http://www.sojust.net/songs.html
My recommendations:
Working Class Hero, John Lennon
Fortunate Son, Creedence Clearwater Revival
Keep Ya Head Up, Tupac
Everyday People, Sly & The Family Stone
Dear Mr. President, P!nk
Fight the Power, Public Enemy
Black Man, Stevie Wonder
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