Thomas Huisman

Education 303-302
Professor Terpstra
October 25, 2016
Professional Literature: Content
Although social justice is an overarching goal of most every department of
teacher education, college of education, and US College or University, it is rarely an
identified goal for K12 schools As I read Thomas Miscos words, I was saddened by
this statement. It hurts me to think about how our schools push their students to do well
on standardized tests and get them to learn exactly what they need to know in order to
pass what is coming. So that they can succeed later on. The focus is on pushing
through the required information. So sure, most schools and school systems want to
have social justice as an overarching theme, we all think its good to help people.
However, it very rarely ends up as a goal for teachers in their day to day lesson plans.
The article discusses how teachers have so many goals and requirements to meet that
they dont even have time in their teaching day to try and fit something in that isnt
required to teach, or to waste time teaching something that the students dont need to
know later for the SAT or ACT. However, being aware and standing up for social justice
should be a top priority in school, life, and all cultures. However, that is just not the
case. If we are ever going to change things around, we, as the next generation of
teachers have to start helping to make the slow change in the system. I believe that the
our job as teachers is to create good people before we create good students. Thomas
Mosis goes over this many times in his article as he pushes for social justice to become
a goal of every teacher in more than just one lesson a year.

Misco, T., & Shiveley, J. (2016). Operationalizing Social Justice in Social Studies Education.
The Social Studies, 1-8. doi:10.1080/00377996.2016.1200527