The Corsair, the newspaper of Santa Monica College, profiled alumnus Carlos Valverde, who teaches an inspirational class on "social justice and the idea of inequality" at Culver City High School.

In the article, SMC student Jasmine Delgado says that Intercultural Literature and Practicum, Valverde’s course, "gave me the tools to have a critical analysis of [Occupy LA], what’s happening, and why it’s happening, and it helped me a lot more because he always pushed me to question a lot of things.”

The article goes on:

“The class is really to teach about the themes dealing with cultural diversity, the themes and issues of race, culture, ethnicity, prejudice, discrimination. I wanted to create a space where kids feel safe to discuss these kinds of issues from a personal perspective so that the class teaches itself in a sense. So I wouldn’t become the sole provider for information, it would come from the kids,” says Valverde.

It also empowers students and teaches them compassion and critical thinking. “One of the things I try to do in the class is just to give students the ability to be able to recognize that they have a voice; a voice in society that matters. I really want students to know that they have the ability to impact others. If I can give them that, then that to me is like inspiring them to say, ‘look, you have potential to affect others. That means that this world doesn’t have to be as bad as it is, and we don’t have to dismiss it as it’ll never get fixed if you know that you can affect those around you,’ then that’s a start,” he says.

You can read the whole article here.