This year, dozens of teachers in Cambridge, Boston, and Springfield piloted Children Discovering Justice (CDJ) 2.0, the organization’s new K-2 standards-based civics curriculum,
Working with the Commonwealth’s youngest students, teachers engaged students in rich conversations about justice and fairness with CDJ’s culturally responsive curriculum and activities.
Fabiane Noronha, a veteran kindergarten teacher at the King Open School in Cambridge said, ‘“My biggest takeaway from Children Discovering Justice is that this curriculum is actually a framework for empowerment; an opportunity for educators and scholars to engage in a transformative human experience.”
Starting the Fall of 2022, Discovering Justice will make this curriculum available to all districts in Massachusetts, leading the way in making high quality civic education accessible to our youngest students. The curriculum is open source and available for free through Discovering Justice. . Every lesson plan is easy to implement with accompanying slides as well as printable, online, and seesaw versions of lesson activities.
Check out sample lessons: Kindergarten Module 1, Lesson 3: Injustice and Second Grade Module 3, Lesson 2. In the lessons you can click into accompanying slides, activities, extra practice, and ongoing tools including our 4 Steps: Justice Advocates Cycle (pictured below).