Japan and the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant

Looking at what is happening in Japan right now, we are faced with multiple and conflicting situations.  Over spring break

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/japan-nuclear-crisis-atomic-samurai-not-afraid-to-die/story-e6frf7lf-1226023634089

Reading Assignment

BOOK ASSIGNMENT

Choose and read one of the books listed or one of your own choice (it must be approved by Mrs. Hayashi).

Journal as you go - As you're reading the book, keep two-sided entries in your journal. The left side should have quotes from the book and page numbers. The right side should have your questions, thoughts, observations, revelations, etc.

In addition, complete any two of the assignments below:

1. Discuss in depth the relevance of the title.
2. Write a letter to the author.
3. Use two other sources to research and write a report on an issue from the book.
4. Write and produce a one minute radio or television PSA on this issue
5. Q & A - Pretend you're interviewing a person from the book. Write your interview in question and answer format.
6. Compare and contrast the book with another you have read on a similar topic.
7. Discuss cause and effect relationships you found in the book.
8. Write an editorial based on a controversial issue in the book.
9. Create a glossary of unfamiliar words and phrases.
10. Choose your favorite passage from the book. Copy it down and discuss what you found appealing about it.
11. Top 10 List - list ten things you learned from this book.
12. You're the reporter. Write a front page news story or create a tv or radio report live from the scene.

Your work will be posted on the walls outside the classroom.

Social Justice (General)

• Beyond cynicism: towards ethics in leadership
• Moral courage
• Why social justice matters

The Law and Aboriginal Rights

• Raven's children: aboriginal youth health in BC
• Imaginary Indian: the image of the Indian in Canadian culture
• Where the pavement ends
• A Long and terrible shadow: White values and native rights in the Americas since 1492
• The Unjust Society
• The Marshall decision and native rights
• Justice for Canada's Aboriginal peoples
• Indians of North America - Tsawout Band - Land claims
• This land is our land: the Mohawk revolt at Oka
• Nisga'a: People of the mighty river
• Nisga'a Final Agreement
• Inuit and their land
• Blood of the land: The Government and corporate war against First Nations
• What's the deal with treaties?
• People of the pines: The Warriors and the legacy of Oka
• Enough is enough: aboriginal women speak out
• Treaty talks in British Columbia
• Native people's access to justice
• Aboriginal issues today: a legal and business guide
• Legacy: Indian Treaty Relationships
• Native law
• Spirit dance at Meziadin: Joseph Gosnell and the Nisga'a Treaty
• Death feast in Dimlahamid

Racism

• Voyage of the Komagata Maru
• Racism
• Racism
• Racism in Canada
• Racial profiling in Canada
• Neo-Nazis: A growing threat
• Better day coming: Blacks and equality, 1890-2000
• Civil rights: the struggle for black equality
• Redress: inside the Japanese Canadians call for justice
• End of apartheid in South Africa
• Colour-coded : a legal history of racism in Canada, 1900-1950
• Forces which shaped them
• Black like me

Poverty

• In the realm of hungry ghosts
• Street stories: 100 years of homelessness in Vancouver
• Street people speak
• Pathologies of power: health, human rights, and the new war on the poor 
• War at home: an intimate portrait of Canada's poor
• On the streets
• Hope in the shadows
• Race against time
• The Blue sweater
• The end of poverty
• Dying for a home
• Pay the rent or feed the kids
• All our sisters
• No-nonsense guide to world poverty
• The Life you can save
• Out of poverty: and into something more comfortable
• The Place I call home: voices and faces of homeless teens
• Homelessness
• Cesar Chavez: labor leader
• Motorcycle diaries: notes on a Latin American journey
• Angela's ashes: a memoir of a childhood

LGBTQ Issues

• Sexual spectrum: exploring human diversity
• Free your mind
• Two teenagers in 20
• In your face
• Revolutionary voices
• Gender outlaw: on men, women, and the rest of us
• Now that I'm out, what do I do?
• Outing yourself
• Becoming two-spirit
• Hear me out
• GLBTQ*
• Is it a choice?
• Civil wars: the battle for gay marriage
• Just a Mom
• Love makes a family
• 50 ways to support lesbian and gay equality
• She's not there: a life in two genders

Women and Gender Issues

• Stolen innocence
• Under the banner of heaven: a story of violent faith
• Gender outlaw: on men, women, and the rest of us
• My gender workbook
• Women in the Arab world
• I am woman
• Suffragettes and votes for women
• Complete idiot's guide to women's history
• Women in the world of India
• The Montreal massacre
• On the streets
• Enough is enough: aboriginal women speak out
• All our sisters
• Unruly women: the politics of confinement and resistance
• My forbidden face: growing up under the Taliban
• As nature made him
• Reading Lolita in Tehran
• Canadian women's issues: Volume 1 - Strong voices

Genocide

• Fear in Chile: lives under Pinochet
• From peacekeeping to peacemaking: Canada's response to the Yugoslav Crisis
• The Lion, the fox & the eagle
• We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families
• Zlata's diary
• Night
• Surviving Hitler: a boy in the Nazi death camps
• Rescuers: portraits of moral courage in the Holocaust
• Iron furnace: a Holocaust survivor's story
• Man's search for meaning
• Breakup of Yugoslavia
• Ghosts of Medak Pocket: the story of Canada's secret war
• Me against my brother: at war in Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda
• Devil came on horseback: bearing witness to the genocide in Darfur
• Not on our watch: The Mission to end genocide in Darfur and beyond
• Unscathed: escape from Sierra Leone
• Life after violence: a people's story of Burundi
• Shake hands with the devil

Globalization

• Bitter chocolate
• Greed Inc. : why corporations rule our world and how we let it happen
• Globalization: the human consequences
• Blockbusters and trade wars : popular culture in a globalized world
• Shock Doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism
• Disposable people: new slavery in the global economy
• What would Gandhi do?
• Capitalism in crisis: globalization and world politics today
• Reefer madness: sex, drugs, and cheap labor in the American black market
• Modern slavery and the global economy
• Fences and windows: dispatches from the front lines of the globalization debate
• George Soros on globalization
• No logo: taking aim at the brand bullies
• Global showdown: how the new activists are fighting global corporate rule

Africa

• Cry the beloved country
• The end of apartheid in South Africa
• Wildlife poaching
• Power of one
• Crossing the line
• John Newton and the slave trade
• Eating apes
• Race against time: Searching for hope in AIDS ravaged Africa
• White necklace
• Tandia
• The betrayal of Africa
• My Maasai life
• Black death: AIDS in Africa
• Poisonwood Bible
• Bloodsong and other stories of South Africa
• Rivers of blood, rivers of gold: Europe's conquest of indigenous peoples
• 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa
• Me against my brother
• Dead aid
• Blue Sweater
• The invisible cure
• Chanda's secrets
• Taking away the distance

Other Social Justice Topics

• 67 ways to save the animals (animal rights)
• Ethics into action : Henry Spira and the animal rights movement (animal rights)
• When elephants fight (child soldiers)
• A real nice but (people with disabilities)
• Ending slavery (slavery)
• Understanding global slavery: a reader (slavery)
• Bitter chocolate (slavery)
• Disposable people: new slavery in the global economy (slavery)
• Keepers of the flame (Amnesty International)
• Hope & despair: my struggle to free my husband, Maher Arar (human rights)
• Future: tense : the coming world order (human rights)
• Reefer madness: sex, drugs, and cheap labor in the American black market
• Child labor today (child labour)
• Modern slavery and the global economy
• Listen to us: the world's working children (child labour)
• Animal underworld: inside America's black market for rare and exotic species
• Eating apes
• Dead aid (international aid)
• Race against time: searching for hope in AIDS-ravaged Africa (international aid)
• Small, good thing: stories of children with HIV and those who care for them
• The Invisible cure: Why we are losing the fight against AIDS in Africa
• 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa
• Our stories, our songs (AIDS)
• Until you are dead: Steven Truscott's long ride into history (Capital punishment)
• Capital punishment
• Within these walls (capital punishment)
• Non-nonsense guide to fair trade
• Brewing justice: fair trade coffee, sustainability, and survival
• The Lady: Aung San Suu Kyi
• Eyes which have seen too much: refugee children in Azerbaijan
• Long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier

How to Take Action

• Free the children
• The world needs your kids
• The tipping point: how little things can make a big difference
• 500 ways to change the world
• Be the difference: a beginner's guide to changing the world
• The Troublemaker's teaparty: A Manual for effective citizen action
• 50 ways to support lesbian and gay equality
• What Would Gandhi Do?
• Ethical shopping: Where to shop, what to buy and what to do to make a difference
• Notes from Canada's young activists
• Another day in paradise
• Everyday activist
• Raise your voice, lend a hand, change the world
• It's our world, too!
• Global showdown: how the new activists are fighting global corporate rule
• Cesar Chavez: labor leader
• Terry Fox: His story
• Gandhi: the young protester who founded a nation
• Rick Hansen: man in motion
• Me to we: turning self-help on it's head
• At the border called hope: where refugees are neighbours
• Three cups of tea
• How to live your dream of volunteering overseas

Action Plan

Perhaps the most important part of this course is the action plan.  What can you do to change the world?  Perhaps your little piece seems like nothing...

...but in fact, each piece that you contribute adds to the millions of other pieces that people around the world are contributing.

SOCIAL JUSTICE 12

ACTION PLAN

1. Identify the issue, challenge, or problem to be addressed

The purpose of an action plan is to organize and develop solutions to address a specific issue, challenge or problem.   For this assignment to have meaning to you, it should concern an issue about which you feel passionate.  Possible general topics could include:

• Globalization
• Genocide
• LGBT issues
• Child and youth issues
• Women’s rights
• Poverty
• Aboriginal issues
• Rights for the alternatively abled
• Sizism
• Ageism
• Animal rights, etc.

Keep in mind that these are general topics and you will have to decide on a specific problem within the general topic to be addressed, i.e. Animal Rights – there is no off-leash park for dogs to run free in your community.

Jot down a few challenges or issues you are aware of either that exist either at school, in your community or in the world around you.

2. Evaluate the issue

Now, examine the list of challenges again and choose one that you feel most committed and confident about addressing through a plan of action. Once you’ve done this, the next step is to evaluate the challenge more objectively and thoroughly. Evaluate the challenge in relation to five primary areas:  background, need, constraints, resources available, and resources needed.

1. Background refers to the history of the issue/challenge, including the cause and other individuals and programs that have tried to address it. If you are not familiar with the issue, this may take a little research on your part. However, based upon what you understand now, what is the history of this issue in the given context?
2. Need has to do more with solutions to the issue or challenge. Essentially ask yourself: “What needs to happen to effectively address this issue?”  Brainstorm a list of actions that could help solve this problem.
3. Constraints are those factors that are keeping you from addressing the challenge.  They might include lack of time, money, education about the issue, volunteers, etc.  Brainstorm a list of possible restrictions that you are aware of:
4. Resources Available are those resources that are easily and readily available and accessible right now to address the issue. So, what are your available resources?
5. Resources Needed are those resources that are not easily and readily available and accessible right now to address the challenge.  So, what resources do you need?

3. Develop a Mission Statement

Now that you have developed a more thorough understanding of the issue/challenge, you can now work to refine the purpose of the action plan and the project it will initiate.  The Mission (or Vision) Statement aims to be a broad and concise description of your purpose for creating an action plan to address the problem. It does not establish specific tasks that the organization will accomplish, but rather what the problem is and generally how it will be addressed.

An example Mission Statement from an action plan to address the effects of poverty in a high school might state:

“Recognizing that some students on campus are coming to school without breakfast or without coats in cold weather, I am committed to changing the situation for them by providing food and coats for free.”

As you see, the Mission addresses the context and states a related purpose. You don’t have to do it in that way, but it may be helpful.

Create a possible Mission Statement for your action plan.

4. Create Goals

Goals function as a kind of thesis statement or purpose for the action plan. They explain exactly what the intended tasks will be in order to fulfill the mission. Keep in mind that effective goals are action oriented, clear (who, what, where, by when), and are related directly to the problem.

You may want to tailor your goals to meet the criteria of being SMART:

S - specific

M - measurable

A - achievable

R - realistic

T - time-bound

Example goals from the school poverty action plan might be:

By the end of the year, I will:

• Find a community sponsor to provide fruit, bread and peanut butter for students once a week.

• Sponsor a winter coat drive/swap in the autumn.

• Facilitate at least one workshop in the spring for students to learn how to write resumes, take interviews, and find jobs.

Now brainstorm 1-3 goals for your action plan:

1)

2)

3)

5. Construct Action Steps

Now you’ve arrived to the most crucial part of the action plan: the action steps. Essentially, the action steps are a realistic list of solutions and activities that will address the challenge, thus fulfilling the goals and working to achieve the mission.  But to develop the action steps, you must first brainstorm a list of possible solutions using your background evaluation earlier developed. Especially keep in mind your Need, Constraints, Resources Available, and Resources Needed assessment.

For example, the Need part of the school poverty project would require initial approval from the principal.  An action derived from this would be:

“Present initial ideas for dealing with the effects of poverty at school to the principal.”

If this is your primary action step, determine (using your evaluation) if there are any constraints and if there are resources to conduct a presentation to the principal. (Make sure to do this for all of your primary action steps.)

Next decide 3 more things:

• If you will be enlisting volunteers to help you, who will be responsible for coordinating or carrying out the action?

• A time by which that action might occur.

• The intended outcome of the action.

Example action step chart for the school poverty plan:

What	By Whom?	By When?	Expected Outcome
Meet with the principal.	All of the volunteers and me.	By the end of September.	We will get approval for the project.
Contact local grocery stores and food banks.	Josh and Carrie	By mid-October.	We will get regular donations for a breakfast program once a week.
Advertise the coat drive/swap with posters and on the announcements.	Me and Carrie	By the end of October.	Students will bring used and outgrown coats to the English portable.

Create an action chart on poster paper for your action plan.

6) Format your action plan

Now arrange the plan into a formal document that you can easily refer to or distribute to any volunteers or anyone just interested in knowing your plans (like me!).

Suggested action plan format:

Title

1) Mission Statement

2) Goals

3) Issue and Background

4) Action Steps (including the chart)

7) Execute and evaluate your action plan

Now that your action plan is ready to go, execute your plan.  As you go, you may find that you may need to change some of your goals and plans.  Be flexible but make notes of all the changes so you can report them to me by the end of the semester.

Once your plan is executed, go back and evaluate your success.  Answer these questions:

1. Did you accomplish each goal?  If not, why not?
2. Did your action steps actually lead you to accomplishing your goals?
3. Did you have to make changes to your plans?  Why was this necessary?  What did you learn from this?
4. Give yourself a letter grade for your over-all project.

8) Present your action plan for teacher evaluation

Your evaluation and grade for your action plan, which is 20% of your total mark, will be based on your presentation.  For your presentation you should include:

• The document of your action plan (this needs to be detailed).  30%
• The chart with your action steps.  5%
•  Photographic or video evidence of the execution of your plan.   30%
• A reference letter from someone who witnessed or benefited from your action plan.  5%
• Your verbal explanation of your action plan.  This should include a brief summary of your document, an explanation of your experiences, anecdotal successes or failures, an explanation of your beliefs that led to this project, a self assessment of how you have changed or grown from the beginning of the course to the end, your understanding of the systemic nature of change and how that is reflected in your project, and a possible future application of your action plan. 30%

 The presentations of your action plan will take place during the final exam week.  This will take the place of a final exam. 

These steps were adapted from the Bonner Foundation Action Planning Curriculum.