The Social Change Club at Thomas Jefferson HS for Science and Technology was one of 27 recipients of a 2023 Student Peace Award of Fairfax County honored at a reception on March 19. Rep. Gerry Connolly introduced a Resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives listing all the recipients and recognizing their efforts as "building blocks of a more peaceful and tolerant world."
The Social Change Club works to raise awareness of social, environmental and other current issues being discussed in local and international news, and which also affect the school community. The club was chartered in December 2020 to create a safe space to discuss these issues, many of which were potentially divisive.
Before their monthly meetings, club members research topics ranging from Black Lives Matter to Stop Asian Hate and French policies on hijabs, and bring this factual material into their discussions. They create discussion questions to build meaningful conversations. In addition to talking about issues, they also provide opportunities to take action, such as writing letters to refugees and sending care packages, phone banking and providing voting information during the fall election period.
From their discussions and activities, club members observed a discrepancy between what they were learning in their history classes and what they observed happening locally and in the world. They realized that ethnic groups were not represented in the school curriculum. Identifying this gap in FCPS curriculum, Social Change Club members decided to formulate a new course for high school students.
They took the initiative to contact FCPS curriculum leaders as well as members of the FCPS School Board, and gained their support and guidance. They drafted an ethnic studies elective course and asked for feedback so they could participate in the FCPS curriculum approval process. They researched various approaches and materials, actively reading works by writers representing diverse ethnic and racial differences, eventually presenting their findings and plans to TJ humanities staff. The teachers were very excited and eager to assist, accepting the students’ input, and maintaining the students’ voices at the forefront throughout the course development.
Currently, teachers and students meet monthly to continue sharing ideas for the program of study and to discuss curriculum design. Club members hope to submit the proposed course syllabus for approval by FCPS curriculum leaders during the 2023-24 school year with implementation as a piloted class at TJ the following year in 2024-25. Having the support of FCPS School Board members, TJ’s Social Change Club maintains the goal of expanding the ethnic studies class county-wide in the next few years.
As club members agreed, “Not only are we creating awareness, but we’re also empowering students to believe that they can create change, and we’re giving them the tools to do so.”