From Muffins to Movements:

Every Friday morning, Lauren, an ESL teacher at Coalition Elementary, hosts all 20 of her colleagues in her 3rd-grade classroom for “Muffins and (faux) Mimosas.” “Sometimes,” Lauren explained, “teachers just need to have a muffin and check in on each other.”

“Muffins and Mimosas” is not just a social event. It’s an organizing strategy. In this informal space, Lauren and colleagues have fostered relationships that help to sustain anti-racist work in their classrooms and beyond. 

When Coalition Elementary’s city council proposed selling a closed public school building to a charter school for $1, every teacher in the school signed a letter expressing outrage. How did this happen? Lauren circulated the letter during their weekly get-together. “It’s resistance,” she reflected. “We did Muffins and Mimosas, so you can bet your butt that everybody signed that petition.” 

As a teacher-activist, Lauren knows the power of these small, regular interactions to create community as resistance. She believes that small gatherings like these allow teachers to come together during moments of crisis instead of succumbing to the tendency of teachers to “close their door and teach.”

The Allure of Isolation

The temptation for teachers to isolate is especially strong given the imminent threats to education, including book banning, attacks on transgender rights, and framing of race and racism as “divisive concepts.” How can teachers respond to these conservative attacks on social justice teaching?

One response from teachers is to self-censor due to fear. This phenomenon, known as the chilling effect, is well-documented; a RAND report revealed two-thirds of U.S. teachers have self-limited classroom discussions about race and gender out of fear of backlash from parents or administrators. 

Other teachers continue to do the work, but as Lauren reflected, often in isolation. These wonderful teachers, or “mama bears” as Lauren lovingly calls them, have become so used to prioritizing their students’ needs that they often disregard their own need for support and community. Working in isolation also forecloses the opportunity for collective resistance. 

Yet, another way is possible. Lauren, and teachers like her, have created educator networks that support everyday practices toward liberation. Recently, we spoke with 20 teachers doing this work. Although their backgrounds and experiences varied, all had participated in a Teaching for Black Lives study group in the past year. 

Coordinated by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change, the Zinn Education Project organized these study groups as part of their Teaching for Black Lives campaign built in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement. Supported by this national network, educators across the United States organized local study groups with fellow teachers, parents, and others invested in educating young people about systemic racism and organizing for justice. One of the clearest lessons we learned from our conversations with these teacher-organizers is this: So much can happen when you get a few like-minded people into a room together. 

Why Teachers Need Community

Many teachers shared how isolated they felt in their anti-racist work before joining the study group. Heidi, a veteran elementary teacher in Illinois, explained: “I feel like for a lot of my career, I was kind of alone on a little island.” While her social studies teaching focused on underrepresented perspectives and aimed to empower her students, she assumed others at her school weren’t interested. When she learned about the Teaching for Black Lives study group, she waited a year before applying. “I was intimidated,” she said. “When I saw it again last summer, I thought, ‘Just go ahead and do it.’” 

To her surprise, the experience allowed Heidi to connect with teachers doing similar work, both in her school community and across the country. Her only regret was not taking the initiative earlier: “I’m a little sad that here I am at the end of my career, and I’m like, ‘Oh look! All these other people are like-minded.’ But it’s exciting.” 

Heidi’s experience with finding like-minded educators by organizing a study group was one we heard from other educators, including those in states facing the most intense conservative attacks on anti-racist teaching. One such teacher was Liliana, an elementary teacher in Florida. Recounting the curriculum restrictions and book challenges her school faces, Liliana reflected, “It’s really scary to be an educator working in that circumstance, and obviously scary for our students also.” Liliana had moved to a new school and the study group allowed her to meet educators at her school who were “teaching with anti-racism in mind.”  For her, the group offered “emotional support” and an opportunity to think carefully and creatively about providing students with access to an expansive curriculum. 

Finding Community, Taking Action

For Cleo, an early childhood educator in Maine, the study group helped her find allies: “It is the most belonging I have felt at my school since I started.” It was a space for her and her colleagues to “realize that we aren’t on our own.” As the group recognized their shared pedagogical orientations, they began to explore how “our thinking together as a group [could] radiate out in some ways.” The group’s discussion of a Rethinking Schools article prompted them to recognize transportation inequity in an upcoming field trip. Emboldened by their shared thinking, they successfully convinced their school’s administration to pay for additional buses to reduce that inequity. 

Although the study group might have started with reading and discussion, it often led teachers to take action in their schools and communities. For some, this took the form of organizing at their school for the Black Lives Matter Week of Action, supporting the work of Black Student Unions and other student groups, and advocating for funding to support anti-racist professional development.  

Faced with the forces attempting to restrict anti-racist teaching, some worry that their local efforts won’t be enough. For so many of the teachers we spoke with, however, it was the small action of starting a study group that served as a catalyst for movement building. Mary, a New York elementary teacher, explained that the study group acted as a space of learning “exactly how deep the problem is” and then take action.  

Small interactions — like the muffins every Friday morning — have allowed teachers like Lauren to “build the base” necessary for future change. Lauren credits the group with fostering the interpersonal connections needed to develop a caucus within her union. “The Teaching for Black Lives study group was the foundation,” Lauren explained. “It gave us the common language and the relationships with one another to have the confidence to launch our caucus.” Lauren describes the study group as “rank-and-file-run and a space where we could learn together, do the things we wanted to do, build the classrooms we wanted to have, and build the union we wanted to have.”

How to Get Started 

How do you take the first step of getting like-minded educators together? Below are some of the tips shared by teachers who organized Teaching for Black Lives study groups:  

1. Build on Your Existing Relationships 

You probably already know a few teachers who might be interested. Reaching out to them is a great first start. Lluvia, a Texas elementary teacher, kept an eye out for opportunities to meet others interested in anti-racist teaching. She works with a local African American history museum in her community, which sponsors a Black History essay contest for students. When a teacher submits student essays for the contest, she explains, “Then I know, boom! That’s a teacher I have to keep networking with, because when I’m doing Black history, they’re gonna want to jump on board.” 

Other educators spoke about intentionally including other members of the school community in their study group. Anne, a New York high school teacher, formed a group that included teachers, students, parents, and their school librarian: “So it was important for me, when I made the group up, that I felt like we should have all stakeholders. . . . I wanted their viewpoints on it.” She spoke about the study group as an opportunity to connect with parents and caregivers, relationships that can be harder to establish in high schools.  

2. Make It a Welcoming Space

Another strategy was to make the study group an enticing space. At the end of a long teaching day, the promise of some tasty snacks can get teachers into the room. One teacher facilitator made this possible by creating a rotating job of “snack bringers” for each study group meeting. Teachers began using their assigned role to bring in special and unusual snacks, bringing some lightness to what were at times heavy conversations. As we heard earlier from Lauren, having some treats to share before school can be similarly tempting. 

3. Be Creative with Meeting Logistics

As teachers are continually pressured to do more, making time for the study groups is perhaps the biggest challenge, so study group organizers experimented with different approaches. While most of the groups met after school, some tried meeting during common lunch times or in the evening to accommodate teachers’ schedules. Others used streaming platforms like Zoom to allow teachers spread out over larger geographic areas to participate. All approaches had benefits and drawbacks, but if an after-school meeting doesn’t seem feasible, explore alternatives. 

Some teachers were successful with a rotating list of “host” teachers responsible for different aspects of facilitation. The benefit of rotating responsibilities is that one facilitator doesn’t feel overburdened, and different environments bring new dimensions to the study group. For example, Luke’s group — teachers from across the district — took turns hosting. Not only did Luke learn different facilitation styles, but it gave teachers the opportunity to visit other parts of their city. 

4. Look for Ways to Compensate Teachers’ Time

In some cases, teachers worked with their administration so study group members could earn professional development hours or pay for their participation. Lauren approached her district’s equity office to request compensation for their work. She acknowledged that the group would “do it for free,” but she thought it was important for their work “to be honored as PD [professional development] . . . and we’d like to be paid.” 

5. Connect with National Networks 

Getting connected with like-minded educators in your community is a great way to combat feelings of isolation and recognize your strength in numbers. This power can be further amplified by getting connected to national networks who can provide additional resources as support. For instance, participants in the Teaching for Black Lives study groups received both a copy of Teaching for Black Lives and a subscription to Rethinking Schools. As Gina, a Massachusetts middle school teacher, explained, engaging in anti-racist teaching is “overwhelming at times, especially because we get so much pushback here.” Having shared resources for her study group to turn to “will keep us in it, and seeing the plus sides of it, and what we can do when we face that adversity.” 

Beyond physical resources, national networks can provide access to experienced national organizers who can support a group’s development. Several of the teachers we spoke with mentioned those organizers from the Zinn Education Project by name. Not only did these organizers provide guidance in getting a study group going, but they also connected local study groups to the larger network and strategized with organizers experiencing pushback. 

Facing Opposition from Other Teachers

Though the Teaching for Black Lives study groups provided support for teachers to engage in anti-racist pedagogies, things did not always go smoothly. Some educators had negative experiences with teachers who did not participate in the group. 

Kira, a middle school teacher and advisor for the Black Student Union, organized a Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. Kira and other members of her Teaching for Black Lives study group created a shirt for all teachers that read “Black Lives Matter at School” in the school colors. Kira was proud of the work that the group and her students had done in bringing these issues to the forefront, and in sharing resources from Rethinking Schools with her colleagues via email. 

Her enthusiasm was dimmed when, to protest these efforts, one of the teachers began to wear a “Blue Lives Matter” shirt to the monthly faculty meetings. “So we’d be sitting there in our shirts, and she’s there in her shirt,” Kira described, shaking her head with disgust. The teacher also ordered Kira to “stop emailing this propaganda,” a directive that Kira ignored. 

Although the study group has given Kira more resources and ideas to share with her colleagues, the experience has both emboldened her and made her more of a target. While she describes herself as “a natural resistor,” she admits that “it’s overwhelming and exhausting to always be the one standing up.” 

Nevertheless, Kira reports that the group has allowed her to reach those teachers, particularly white teachers, “who are open and willing to learn about some of the experiences we [Black teachers] have that they don’t necessarily have.”

Managing Tensions Within a Teacher Community

Other teachers described tensions within the group itself. Lluvia shared that her study group consisted mostly of professors or graduate students that “were more interested in research-type questions,” which she was not “interested in at all.” Lluvia had joined the group to network with other teachers and share “how we teach this in our schools.” Lluvia contrasted her experience with Teaching for Black Lives with her participation in a critical teacher inquiry group that consisted of a “bunch of teachers” working together to concretely develop their teaching practices. 

Lluvia’s experience, especially when contrasted with the many teachers who deepened their practice through these groups, highlights the importance of considering the needs, expectations, and expertise of all those involved when developing a study group. Many teachers we spoke with described how they experimented with the structure and composition of their study groups. Luke’s group invited guest speakers. Lauren’s group added a second meeting of the month for more time to discuss the book. 

Individuals come into study groups with different interests and experiences, which can also create tension. Emily, a white middle school teacher, shared that her group felt divided. She reported that one young white male teacher “tended to sort of hijack the discussion,” and made the conversations about his learning and growth. Much of the study group’s time, then, involved Black educators in the group teaching him about Black life. This imbalance of power and time was compounded by the fact that the study group was always facilitated by their assistant principal. Emily wished that the roles and goals of the group were more clearly developed and responsibilities more equitably shared.

Emily was not alone in feeling disconnected from some study group members. Lillian, a novice white Latina teacher, was disheartened when, as the group began discussing the genocide in Gaza, a Jewish teacher monopolized the conversation by talking about how uncomfortable she felt about the topic. However, because the group took place online and had teachers from all over the state, Lilian felt unable to engage in a meaningful conversation with the teacher. This disconnection was deepened because attendance waxed and waned throughout the year. Though she found the study group helpful, Lilian wished that more people routinely participated. 

Challenges with consistent participation were not uncommon. Given the many demands on teachers’ time, teacher-organizers may find that participation changes despite their best efforts. Rather than view such experiences as a failure, teachers might view these ebbs as an expected part of the organizing process.     

“We Have to Open Our Doors”

Despite challenges, teachers overwhelmingly described their experiences in the study groups as positive and even transformative. Some teachers we interviewed had facilitated groups for three years and found purpose bringing these concepts to teachers in their schools and beyond. The Teaching for Black Lives study group was just the beginning of their work with fellow educators, a starting point for building momentum. 

As Lauren emphasized, “Many of the teachers in my school are amazing, but we have to open our doors and share what we’re doing. Otherwise, we’re not all going to make it.” She recognized that relationships are key to sustaining this work. “That’s resistance,” she reflected. “Somebody dropped off food for me when I needed it, and that’s resistance too. I think that’s the world we want to live in. But we’re not there yet. So, it’s about building and practicing that.” 

These study groups offer the opportunity to practice “opening our doors” in difficult times by connecting teachers with a national movement of critical teachers. Through resources offered by the Rethinking Schools team, many teachers began to see their work as activism that connects to a larger movement. For instance, when Mary’s group faced pushback in their NYC schools, she was able to organize because she had “a whole support system” behind her, including organizers of the Teaching for Black Lives study groups. When you feel that kind of support, Mary explained, “Then it’s like I have to be part of this. I know this is right. That’s something that’s invaluable with the study groups, and it just makes you want to do more.” Therefore, though “there’s always more work to do,” when you connect with people who “speak the same language,” it energizes you. The support of educators across the nation creates the pathway by which a Friday morning gathering can blossom into a movement toward a more livable world.