Social Justice

Today’s class was a bit different than our normal Saturday session; it was very interactive. In fact I would have to say that it was better suited for a younger audience, requiring group participation and role play. If you've missed my take on role-play and how I feel about it, consider yourself lucky. Let's just say I don't enjoy role-play as a learning method.

The other thing about this class was the total lack of handouts or the opportunity to take notes. I mean, without notes how am I supposed to retain anything, or be able to recall it later, or like right now as I try to write this post? Another big difference about this Saturday session was that it was presented to all of the first and second year students combined into one group. This is especially difficult because some of the students speak English only and some of the students speak Spanish only, the lucky ones speak both English and Spanish, and a few speak either English or Spanish and another third language.

After the opening remarks, six students were brought into the center of the room. They were tied into two groups to representing two groups of people, those that originated in Northern Africa and those that originated in Asia. To these two communities "babies" were added until the string would break, which caused the people in these communities to disperse to other areas and to form additional communities. To all of these "babies" were added until the string would break again, and in this way all of us were eventually added to the growing populations that eventually formed the communities around the world. The idea here is that we all are linked by a common ancestry.

Next we were divided into groups of two that didn't share a common language, for instance I was paired with someone who spoke Spanish only. The task was that each of us was tell a children’s story to the other person without the use of a common language. I tried to tell the story of the Three Little Pigs and she told me the story about Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (I think). The idea here of course is that a common language is not the only way to communicate with another person. People from different backgrounds and cultures would have been able to trade and eventually form a common community.

After that we were divided into groups of about 8 people each. Questions were asked, such as, "Were you born someplace more than a thousand miles from here", and if you were you would raise your hand. Those in each group who raised their hands would then hold one end of a short piece of yarn. The next question was asked and more short pieces of yarn were added to those who raised their hands. Eventually of course there were lots and lots of green yarn connecting the 8 people in each of the groups, that looked a lot like a spiders web. The idea here is that, given enough questions and yarn, what we were really doing was weaving a cloth that represented the connections all people have with all other people. It's the tapestry of life.

There were other short interactive learning sessions (role-play opportunities), such as one in which we took on the characters in a story and then acted out the story as it was outlined on our guide sheets. All of the stories each of the groups acted out were in some way representative of actual situations faced by actual people and families, confronted by real life Social Justice issues. The questions we were to consider were things like "how did each of the characters in the story feel about ___________ (some aspect of the situation)".

I was not surprised that in one of my small discussion groups one person did seem to be "out of synch" with the rest of us regarding the issue of documented verses undocumented residents. Nevertheless I don't think that anyone in either the first or second year, English or Spanish classes found anything enlightening about this process, and nothing fundamentally new was presented.

It was interesting to hear presentations from three people who have been personally affected at work or at home by these kinds of issues. It helped those of that speak English only to connect real life people to the need for social justice. At the end of the day there was a forty five minute presentation on the concept of Social Justice Spirituality that I would like to have more information on. It seams to me that it is important to keep Social Justice and Spirituality tied together. They are not separate concepts.

Nevertheless, I believe that almost everyone recognized the goal of today’s session as an attempt to help us understand that social justice isn't about policies and laws. It's all about the people and the connections that we all share as the Children of God. It is not until we understand this that the policies and laws can be addressed.