Role of Teaching Social Justices

I feel that social justice should be taught in the classroom. I teach about the Khmer Rouge Cambodian genocide, some years I use the text If You Don't Like it Change it, and others. But I have such an internal war with myself on this topic. Palmer talked about the guilt when he teaches in a subject centered classroom and that guilt resonates with me. When I teach the Khmer Rouge unit it is "messy". The lessons don't go together in a perfect linear manner. We have circles of understanding, backtracking, etc. I feel like I lose my balance sometimes. Did I focus enough on my standards? Did I effectively use my social justice approach as a vehicle to teach the standards? The standards must be put into a context. I believe that using social justice as a context can be done. That guilt gets to me. Three years ago my class was filled with social justice topics, then the next two years I sacrificed that for other material. Once again I am looking at the approaching school year and wanting to add them back in as an integral part of my class. Again Palmer said that we have to let go and when we are doing that, we might not be very good teachers. And there lies my problem. When I teach essay form, grammar, etc. etc. I know I'm doing it in the traditional definition of "right." But in my heart I know that is not the case, but to admit that a class didn't go well, I didn't do it right is really hard for me. Now we have added Trainor to the mix. What harm might my good intentions do? How can I teach social injustices without creating a "token" representative of an entire issue? Gere discussed it is hard to write and not colonize the other voices, does Trainor have a similar message? Using one text to teach one-multi cultural issue may overshadow other voices. So then what is my job in this as teacher. Sherri discussed the need to analyze the "whiteness" of text in the same way "Elizabeth" set up a classroom to analyze Angelou's piece. That is an idea to start with, but there are still so many unanswered questions. DO NO HARM vs. DO NOTHING is a scary question that I have to consider when I want to teach. Doing nothing isn't an option for me. I want to teach social justices! I want my students to have deep conversations to promote growth. And yet the process for doing that is so unclear still. Like Sherri said, she doesn't have the answers. Going into the classroom without the answers is scary. And now on to the inquiry paper, today's post actually has no final answers. All I have is more questions about how to incorporate social justice, what I can do as a teacher to do it right, and what the heck does "doing it right" even mean? Like Don said, we're doing this all week, maybe I can grab onto some clarity later on.