More than 800 educators from across the country convened in Portland, Oregon, from June 29-July 1 to learn, strategize, and organize for racial and social justice in classrooms and communities.
For the second year, Rethinking Schools had a table at the conference, where we shared our books and magazines. Zinn Education Project, co-coordinated by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change, also had a table. The tables were buzzing with activity, as educators were hungry for resources to teach during dire times.
Rethinking Schools’ Executive Director, Cierra Kaler-Jones, led two workshops on building narrative power for education justice. She covered strategies for identifying key audiences and crafting effective messages. Cierra guided attendees through group work to test out different stories and messages. Groups discussed narratives to preserve and protect public education, support immigrant communities and students, fight for the rights of LGBTQ+ students, disrupting standardized testing, and more.
Rethinking Schools also hosted several teach-in tables in the Freedom Lab space. Editors Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson shared excerpts from our book Teaching Palestine: Lessons, Stories, Voices, and initiated a discussion about what it means to teach for Palestine in a time of genocide. Editors Stan Karp and David Levine hosted a table on school funding, where they shared some of the lessons from Rethinking Schools’ special issue, Resisting Debt, Funding Justice. Cierra Kaler-Jones hosted a table on writing for justice and invited educators to discuss their writing processes, possible writing projects, and ideas for teaching writing.
We are grateful for our partnership with the National Education Association and the opportunity to connect with educators and union members.