Chapter 2: “Runnin’” from the Pharcyde and T.I.’S “Warzone”: Sneaking Peace and Social Justice Into the Classroom

Educators and students face a broad range of challenges in classrooms all around the world. A recent survey of teachers found most teachers were not prepared to transition to distance/online education that teachers felt they were doing their best, but it was requiring more work. “Teachers individually and collectively have innovated, inventing new ways of teaching and developing new curricula and pedagogies. Many feel they are improving as teachers; many are offering significant support to colleagues” (Iverness Institute, 2021) These obstacles and pressures impact everything from the content offered to learning outcomes and assessments but the adaptation is working (Briggs-McGowan et al., 2012; Terrasi & Crain de Galarce, 2017). In two decades of teaching, I have witnessed several trends which problematize my hopes, dreams, and goals as an educator. While I have found there are increasingly durable benefits for students receiving education and training in peace, conflict, and social justice I have observed increased pushback against soft-sciences and “woke” education (to use a current popular pejorative);¹ Without praxis, students’ skills will not have utility and will not become part of their deeper learning (Kuh, 2008); research-based strategies help to deliver these competency-based outcomes (Ambrose et al., 2010; Davis, 2009; Svinicki & McKeachie, 2011), but political currents frequently oppose these approaches. George Parker (2022) writes: “We’ve turned schools into battlefields, and our kids are the casualties.”²