Advocacy

Advocacy is a critical skill in my classroom, as it directly supports my students' ability to engage in activism - a foundational element of my teaching vision. Through advocacy, my students have another tool to add to their activists' toolbox, enabling them to further change in their schools, communities, and further abroad. 

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While I make every attempt to give my students practice in advocacy in every lesson, I have selected two extended lessons that I believe highlight my students' growth as advocates for their communities, both locally and globally. Through lessons on global poverty, my students learn about life for the working poor in developing nations, think, write, and speak about the real-world problems that they face, and flex their activist muscles through writing mock United Nations resolutions and planning a fundraiser to sponsor a year of education, nutrition supplements, and preventative medicine for a child in a country that they studied. Through lessons comparing contemporary cases of forced removal to the forced removal of American Indians that my students studied in our history class, my students think about how displacement operates for people in our local Memphis community, and cite evidence to trace the background of the problems and brainstorm potential solutions. They speak on the issues, often passionately, in informal presentations, and ultimately learn how they can take collective action by creating action proposals to address the problems in our community.

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Please click the images below to see how my students engage in advocacy in my classroom.