UNDERSTANDING ACROSS DIFFERENCES Climate change, Standing Rock, and the gender pay gap. These are just some of the topics discussed in CSB’s inaugural Social Justice class which explores both historic and present- day social struggles. With recent incidents such as the George Floyd case and violence toward Pacific Island-Asian Americans fresh in everyone’s mind, the class offered a timely opportunity for students to make sense of the weighty and often emotionally charged topics surrounding them. BY GARRICK RAMIREZ (Felix ’23)
“What’s so beautiful about kids is their ability to develop empathy across differences,” notes Aaron Mullen, Cathedral’s Director of Inclusion and Student Life who is leading the course. How does he define social justice? “It depends on the day,” Mullen says half-jokingly, before adding, “Basically, it’s the notion that people are treated with fairness.” The idea for the class grew out of a lunchtime gathering that Mullen helped facilitate over the past nine years. Dubbed “Perspectives,” the drop-in, roundtable gathering offered
When considering topics such as identity, Mullen says that kids have questions but need a framework and skills to engage in civil discourse. “There’s a fear of saying the wrong thing that can hinder the ultimate goal of deepening one’s understanding. We’re here to develop compassion, not consensus,” he says. The course’s framework was inspired by the Freedom School Curriculum that was first developed within the schools that sprouted up during the 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi.
In addition to academic skills, the curriculum includes tenets such as students must know their history, curriculum should be linked to student experience, a school should be an agent of social change, and questions should be open-ended. “It was more like a conversation than a class,” says Lucian Tann, a eighth-
“WHAT’S SO BEAUTIFUL ABOUT KIDS IS THEIR ABILITY TO DEVELOP EMPATHY ACROSS DIFFERENCES...”
students a chance to voice whatever was on their minds, from homework to world events. To foster a free and open discussion, the staff facilitators ensured that the usual student- teacher power dynamics were
checked at the door. “The power of kids’ experiences is best expressed outside of the top-down approach of a traditional classroom structure,” explains Mullen. Classmates agree. “It’s a very tight community, and we feel very comfortable talking with our teachers and each other,” says Adriel Jair Oyagata Cushcagua, one of the participants in the Social Justice class. “It’s important to have a place to express yourself.”
grade student who appreciated the lively discussions among his classmates. He and his fellow students learned about numerous social movements including the Chicano farm labor struggle, protests against police brutality, and the Me Too movement. The boys also explored the concept of intersectionality, and how, for example, an immigrant woman of color might have a different set of experiences than a US-born man of color. And, when studying events such as the Japanese internment
14 | CATHEDRAL SCHOOL FOR BOYS
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