A lot of what we talk about here involves our newly unfolding consciousness that is centered around the Black Lives Matter movement. Schools are just little microcosms of society and it is where a ton of social change happens.
So if we don’t have built into our curriculum the most pressing issue of our time, the issue that America needs to move on the most, then what are we doing? I know the answer to that question.
If we don’t build into our curricular objectives in our language classes, we will be:
- Perpetuating the status quo.
- Allowing racism to seem normal in every class we teach.
- Supporting a non-socially conscious way of teaching that is really miserable for everyone involved.
- Allowing ignorance to reign in administrative circles, and THAT is a BIG problem right now because it allows teachers to keep on ignoring what the research says about how people acquire languages.
- Failing, again and again, to reflect on what is best for all our students and implement the changes that are necessary.
- Signing ourselves up for a boring career in which – and get this – we have to teach the same class all day!
- Part of the problem, and not the solution.
Come on WL teachers! Wake up! If you think that continuing to teach in ways that support the old ways, then you are not helping bring our profession into the new era that is sprouting up everywhere right now, finally finally finally!