Hoboken Charter School

Character Building through a Social-Justice Lens

Hoboken's seventh- and eighth-grade humanities classes study history through a “social-justice lens” in a year-long program. The social justice awareness approach is two-fold. First, students explore issues impacting their community, the country, and the world, such as human rights violations. They relate these issues to various events in history in their year-long study. Second, students explore ways in which they can take action. One part of their research is to study activists and heroes who provide positive character models, including Nobel Peace Prize laureates as well as antebellum abolitionists. Culminating service-learning projects allow students to put their learning into action, and with ongoing written and oral reflection, students further process and relate the materials to their own lives. During the study of slavery in U.S. history, for example, students become contemporary abolitionists and educate the local community about modern slavery in countries such as Pakistan, the Dominican Republic and even the U.S. The social justice awareness program helps Hoboken Charter School students become knowledgeable about current events while they learn to appreciate history, feel empowered and become involved with the learning process in new, exciting ways.