Lessons to Transform Your Classroom

This week, I'm leading a workshop for the Georgia Association of Educators on Lessons to Transform Your Classroom from my book Unlocking Your Rubber Room. In addition, I will have "Lessons of Justice for the Classroom" with Participant Activities, including this one:

Lessons to Transform Your Classroom
Perry Binder, J.D.

Lessons on teaching, life, fun, and the intersection of education and justice – where you can make a difference in your life, your students’ lives, and the world around you. Lessons of Justice can be taught at all grade levels

Participant Activity, Part I
Hypothetical: You are a teacher in the state of Georgia looking for a way to teach lessons of fairness, justice, and empathy for your class. Today, you read about the following (fictitious) story: In the State of Apathy, the Utopia elementary school sits 400 yards downstream from a dam holding back billions of gallons of water mixed with coal sludge. The Apathy state government and local school board have refused to build a new elementary school in a safer location. The not so apathetic parents of children attending Utopia, afraid for their children’s lives, have tried for years to get a new school out of harm’s way. Finally, in April 2010, the local school board will discuss and vote on possible funding for a new school.

Pick one of the following grade grouping (we can refine the grouping if needed)
Grades 3-5
Grades 6-8
Grades 9-12

Brainstorm with one or two other teachers and come up with an interactive assignment for your students to better understand, connect with, and help the students at Utopia.

Participant Activity, Part II (handed out after completing Part I):

What would your lesson look like if this wasn’t a hypothetical and these events were occurring at your school?
Marsh Fork Elementary School, West Virginia
Advocacy Group: http://www.penniesofpromise.org/

Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=2256931294