Many of us have posted our support for #BlackLivesMatter on social media, attended marches, donated money, etc., and are wondering what the next steps are. How can we make Kyoto JALT a comfortable space for all language teachers? What can we do to promote social justice in our classrooms?
Together, let’s discuss some actions we can take. To provide us with some concrete ideas, we will read the book Words and Actions: Teaching Languages Through the Lens of Social Justice (2nd edition) (Glynn, Wesely, & Wassell, 2014) and discuss it, a couple of chapters at a time. The book is in English, and discussions will be conducted primarily in English. (However, if anyone would like to facilitate a Japanese discussion, we are ready to support you!) This book is available for free via the link above. It is also available as a (paid) Kindle book.
Please note that the facilitator of this discussion is not an expert on social justice and will be learning alongside everyone else.
Part of the challenge of reading this book is that it is not perfectly suited to our context (no book is!), so we will need to think about how to adapt the ideas. So please bring to the discussion your own experience, expertise, questions, answers, and willingness to both teach and learn.
We invite your participation via
Zoom for synchronous discussion (see schedule below)
Slack for asynchronous discussion
To join us, please fill out the registration form. We’ll send you the participation links.
Schedule
Wednesday afternoons at 4 p.m. on the following dates:
July 22, 2020 Chapters 1 & 2
Aug. 5, 2020 Chapter 3 & 4
Aug. 19, 2020 Chapter 5 & 6
Sept. 9, 2020 Chapter 7 & 8
About the Facilitator
Betsy Lavolette, PhD, Associate Professor of English, Faculty of Foreign Studies, Kyoto Sangyo University
I’m happy to have the opportunity to facilitate this group! I proposed a reading group because I don’t know enough about social justice and antiracist pedagogy. I hope it will be a good way to learn more through reading and discussion with fellow language teachers. Please join us!
