Rethinking the American Revolution

Summer 2026

Don’t Make Students Love America — Teach Them to Question It

By Jesse Hagopian

Hagopian highlights how a new Zinn Education Project lesson uses primary sources to engage students in discussions about slavery, inequality, and the meaning of freedom.

Beyond Loyalists and Patriots: Centering Black and Indigenous Americans When Teaching the American Revolution

By Tiferet Ani

A history teacher describes a mixer role play that introduces students to Black and Indigenous perspectives at the time of the American Revolution.

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Rethinking Schools is the country’s leading grassroots magazine for social and racial justice in education.

About Rethinking Schools

Rethinking Schools began in 1986, when a group of Milwaukee education activists — teachers, teacher educators, and community members — met to talk about how they could bring more critical voices into the conversation about public schools and libraries. These founding Rethinking Schools editors saw a school curriculum that was conservative, dumbed-down, and dominated by corporate-produced textbooks. Inappropriate standardized testing was rampant. Racial bias infected every level of schooling.

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