Social Responsibility in Education
Updated: Jul 12, 2021
There is a professional obligation to include technology in the classroom through the ISTE standards for educators. These standards were created for educators to help students become empowered learners while also helping educators deepen their practice, promote collaboration with peers, and prepare students to develop a roadmap for their personal learning objectives (ISTE, 2020)
The Covid-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented time in education for both students and educators. The challenges faced today, highly affects the way educators can deliver information efficiently while also actively engaging students to learn and contribute to the environments around them (Gangone, 2021)
Through this adversity, educators continue to provide a social responsibility to their students and others who need it, different ways educators use their social responsibility to young learners are to have discussions in regard to:
1. Race-related issues
2. Socio-economic challenges
3. Differences in linguistic and cultural backgrounds
4. Unique opinions around gender biases
Though there are more unique challenges educators encounter, they can find a community and resources to help equip teachers to better serve their students (Gangone, 2021)
The organization of American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) was founded to support the education of teachers and to ensure educators are prepared to serve the public good of students (Gangone, 2021)
Educators can help students feel connected in their classroom and nurturing school environments. There are various ways students can be connected to their peers by moving toward a restorative practices approach, enhancing social-emotional skills, and promoting cultural responsiveness (Taylor, 2018)
Different ways this can be incorporated into an educational environment are as follows:
1. Restorative practices: organizations like the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility and the International Institute for Restorative Practices help schools build togetherness and restore children to their school community (Taylor, 2018)
2. Fostering social-emotional skills helps children feel confident about themselves and strengthen their interpersonal skills while encouraging them to have a strong and healthy relationship with their peers, this can be done by building a responsive classroom environment so children can learn to relate to one another on an interpersonal level (Taylor, 2018)
3. Promoting cultural responsiveness help students feel they can have honest conversations in safe spaces created by educators where they can discuss topics (Taylor, 2018) Educators can bring awareness to hidden biases by using assessments that expose the unconscious or automatic biases educators bring into their classroom, this will help educators recognize hidden biases and microaggressions they may have and tackle their self-reflections to help build a better classroom (Taylor, 2018)
Gangone, L. M. (2021, April 25). Educators and Social Responsibility: What This Means to Informed Citizenry. Retrieved from American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE): https://aacte.org/2019/08/educators-and-social-responsibility-what-this-means-to-informed-citizenry/
Taylor, S. (2018, May 21). Making Sure Students Feel Connected. Retrieved from Edutopia: https://www.edutopia.org/article/making-sure-students-feel-connected
ISTE. (2020, September 11). ISTE Standards for Educators. Retrieved from ISTE: