Social Justice Education

The Wesley School is committed to an anti-bias pedagogy throughout the school: helping children to learn more about the multiple aspects of their identity, to communicate and collaborate while honoring those differences in background and perspective, and to engage as active citizens in our school community and the world. One of the tools we've adopted are the Social Justice Standards which were developed by experts in conjunction with Learning for Justice (formerly ‘Teaching Tolerance’). The Social Justice Standards outline developmentally appropriate student learning goals across the grade levels in the areas of identity, diversity, justice, and action. All of our teachers are evaluating their curricula using this framework as an organizer, in order to take stock of our current practices in these areas, to collect helpful resources and share promising practices, and to identify goals for continued growth.

 

In conjunction with this effort, teachers are engaging in regular meetings and a variety of professional development activities to advance their own identity development, cultural proficiency, and professional practice to support their work with children in the months and years to come.