Why Teach for Social Justice and What's it Mean? (early thoughts)

An early reflection on my thoughts about Social Justice
(these represent some initial conceptions I had about these questions before doing much detailed thinking about the topic... much more detail will come with later posts)

What is Social Justice? And what does that mean for my practice as a teacher?
I understand the term ‘social justice,’ when considered as a noun, as an ideal. In an ideal ‘society’, all groups therein would exist with ‘just’ opportunities to express values, attain goals, share culture, and probably many more things. When thought of as a verb, ‘social justice’ is the striving toward the ideals imbedded in the noun.
My personal sense of social justice is heavily informed by my background in the Christian faith. The God of the Bible was concerned for the weakest in society and set up a series of laws that supported those groups (orphans, widows, poor, sick, foreign). Jesus stated a series of ‘blessings’ in which he highlighted the poor, the sick, the blind, the peaceful, the meek, the downtrodden, etc. that he said were blessed. James wrote that ‘true religion’ was caring for the orphans and widows. These ideas may not often be associated with 21st century Christianity, but they form the foundation of my sense of social justice: working toward the betterment of the least privileged in society.
As a teacher focused on teaching for social justice, my goal is three-fold. I want to create opportunities for all students to consider the social situations different groups find themselves in as an opportunity to understand ‘others’ (create empathy). I think that a lot of oppression (the polar-opposite of social justice) stems from mis-understandings and fear of ‘others.’ Second, I want to support all students (in particular those from disadvantaged groups) in gaining process and thinking skills that are valued by power in society and will open up opportunities for the future (remember Delpit and Payne). Finally, I want to open the world of ‘thinking,’ as defined by Dewey, to all of my students. That is, the experience of facing a real problem, using one’s own knowledge and new information to inform ideas about the problem, and trying out those ideas.

Cited sources:
- Lisa Delpit, Other People's Children
- Ruby Payne, A Framework for Understanding Poverty
- John Dewey, Democracy and Education
- Various Authors, The Bible