Vision for 2018-2019 PLC

Incubating and Sustaining:

How Teacher Networks Enable and Support Social Justice Education by Ritchie S.

Summary:
1. “Teachers who enact critical pedagogy listen to their students and build their teaching around
learners’ interests and experiences rather than seeing curriculum as something to be
“deposited” or “delivered” into their empty heads. They call into question the prescribed
curriculum, asking whose perspective it represents: who benefits and who loses from such a
perspective?”
2. “Teachers became politicized prior to becoming teachers. Their activism and participation in
progressive networks served to radicalize them and guide them into teaching.”
3. “What is missing is giving teachers the tool of networking to sustain their critical practice. Some
ways we might help teacher networks are to sponsor writing groups or start critical inquiry
groups with teachers, invite teachers to join the networks in which we participate (another
reason we ourselves should participate in supportive networks), and help teachers connect to
teacher activist groups, National Writing Project sites, teacher unions, and international
networks that offer alternatives to the top-down corporatized education “reform” movement in
the United States. We can also work with teacher mentor programs to ensure that mentor
teachers know how to help their mentees connect with progressive networks. Teacher
education programs that fail to give teachers the tool of networking for social justice only go
halfway toward developing critical educators.”
4. Incubator = Help develop their critical consciousness
a. UCLA TEP
5. Sustainer = Help provide ideas to enact that social justice education
a. UCLA Science PLC

Objectives:
1. Develop and refine culturally sustaining curriculum that is NGSS aligned
a. Culturally responsive management
i. EQ: There are tools for classroom management, but how do we conduct it in a
firm but non-oppressive, non-meritocratic manner?
b. Culturally sustaining curriculum
i. EQ: What is the process of making Culturally Sustaining curriculum? How can we
provide Culturally Sustaining Curriculum without reinventing the wheel?
2. Provide socioemotional support throughout the academic year
a. Networking
i. EQ: What does it mean to be a SJ educator? What does the journey look like?
3. Create a community around sustained growth as social justice educators
a. Community Building
i. EQ: How can a teacher learn about and become involved in their community?