Featured Books

Pre-Order Science Teaching for Social Justice

Gretchen Kraig-Turner, Liza Finkel, Jana Dean, and Jen Sauer

Science Teaching for Social Justice helps students and educators dig into science as a tool of oppression and means of liberation.

Teaching Palestine

Lessons, Stories, Voices

Edited by Bill Bigelow, Jesse Hagopian, Suzanna Kassouf, Adam Sanchez, and Samia Shoman

Palestine has long been one of the great silences in the official curriculum. Teaching Palestine: Lessons, Stories, Voices provides educators with powerful tools to uncover the history and current context […]

Transgender Justice in Schools

Edited by Linda Christensen and Ty Marshall

Transgender Justice in Schools provides inspirational stories from trans students and educators and resources for teachers, students, and parents seeking to build communities where everyone flourishes. This book will educate, […]

Rethinking Multicultural Education 3rd Edition

Teaching for Racial and Cultural Justice

Edited by Wayne Au

Practical, rich in story, and analytically sharp, Rethinking Multicultural Education can help current and future educators as they seek to bring racial and cultural justice into their own classrooms.

Planning to Change the World 2025-26

A plan book for social justice educators

Edited By Holly Hardin, Natalia Ortiz, and Carla Shalaby

Every plan book purchase includes a complimentary PDF download of the August and September pages so you can get a head start on planning! Planning to Change the World: A Plan Book […]

Teacher Unions and Social Justice

Organizing for the Schools and Communities Our Students Deserve

Edited by Michael Charney, Jesse Hagopian, and Bob Peterson

An anthology of more than 60 articles documenting the history and the how-tos of social justice unionism. Together, they describe the growing movement to forge multiracial alliances with communities to defend and transform public education.

Teaching a People’s History of Abolition and the Civil War

Edited By Adam Sanchez

Teaching a People’s History of Abolition and the Civil War is a collection of 10 classroom-tested lessons on one of the most transformative periods in U.S. history. These lessons encourage […]

The New Teacher Book-3rd Edition

Finding purpose, balance, and hope during your first years in the classroom

Edited by Linda Christensen, Stan Karp, Bob Peterson, and Moé Yonamine

Newly revised and expanded third edition! This expanded third edition of The New Teacher Book grew out of Rethinking Schools workshops with early career teachers. It offers practical guidance on […]

Rethinking Ethnic Studies

Edited By R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, Miguel Zavala, Christine Sleeter, Wayne Au

As part of a growing nationwide movement to bring Ethnic Studies into K-12 classrooms, Rethinking Ethnic Studies brings together many of the leading teachers, activists, and scholars in this movement […]

Teaching for Black Lives

Black students' minds and bodies are under attack. We're fighting back.

Edited by Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian, and Wayne Au

Teaching for Black Lives grows directly out of the movement for Black lives. We recognize that anti-Black racism constructs Black people, and Blackness generally, as not counting as human life. […]

Reading, Writing, and Rising Up- 2nd Edition

Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word

Authored By Linda Christensen

For almost two decades, teachers have looked to Reading, Writing, and Rising Up as a trusted text to integrate social justice teaching in language arts classrooms. This accessible, encouraging book […]

Rethinking Bilingual Education

Welcoming home languages in our classrooms

Edited by Elizabeth Barbian, Grace Gonzales, and Pilar Mejia

Rethinking Bilingual Education is an exciting new collection of articles about bringing students’ home languages into our classrooms. How do we bring social justice curriculum into our bilingual classrooms? How […]

Rethinking Popular Culture and Media – 2nd Edition

Edited by Elizabeth Marshall and Özlem Sensoy

Rethinking Popular Culture and Media begins from the premise that the “popular” is political. Whether it’s Disney and Barbie, or Snapchat and Vine, youth navigate, shape, and repurpose popular culture. […]

Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality

Edited by Annika Butler-Wall, Kim Cosier, Rachel Harper, Jeff Sapp, Jody Sokolower, and Melissa Bollow Tempel

Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality is a collection of inspiring stories about how to integrate feminist and LGBTQ content into curriculum, make it part of a vision for social justice, […]

Rhythm and Resistance

Teaching Poetry for Social Justice

Edited by Linda Christensen and Dyan Watson

Offering practical lessons about how to teach poetry to build community, understand literature and history, talk back to injustice, and construct stronger literacy skills across content areas and grade levels—from […]

A People’s Curriculum for the Earth

Teaching Climate Change and the Environmental Crisis

Edited by Bill Bigelow and Tim Swinehart

Five years in the making, A People’s Curriculum for the Earth is a collection of articles, role plays, simulations, stories, poems, and graphics to help breathe life into teaching about the environmental crisis. The book features some of the best articles from Rethinking Schools magazine alongside classroom-friendly readings on climate change, energy, water, food, and pollutionÑas well as on people who are working to make things better. A People’s Curriculum for the Earth has the breadth and depth of Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World, one of the most popular books we’ve published.

At a time when it’s becoming increasingly obvious that life on Earth is at risk, here is a resource that helps students see what’s wrong and imagine solutions.

Rethinking Multicultural Education 2nd Edition

Teaching for Racial and Cultural Justice

Edited By Wayne Au

This new and expanded edition collects the best articles dealing with race and culture in the classroom that have appeared in Rethinking Schools magazine. With more than 100 pages of […]

Open Minds to Equality – 4th Edition

Edited by Nancy Schniedewind and Ellen Davidson

Summary The fourth edition of Open Minds to Equality contains a wealth of updated information and resources. New lessons address immigration, anti-Muslim discrimination, gender identity, and bullying. The comprehensive, annotated […]

Rethinking Mathematics – Second Edition

Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers

Edited by Eric Gutstein and Bob Peterson

In this expanded and updated edition of Rethinking Mathematics, more than 50 articles show how to weave social justice issues throughout the mathematics curriculum, as well as how to integrate […]

Teaching About the Wars

Edited by Jody Sokolower

During his four years in office, President Trump pushed the United States closer toward war with Iran. After barely a month in office, President Joe Biden carried out airstrikes in […]

Rethinking Elementary Education

Edited by Linda Christensen, Mark Hansen, Bob Peterson, Elizabeth Barbian, and Dyan Watson

Rethinking Elementary Education collects the finest writing about elementary school life and learning from 25 years of Rethinking Schools magazine. The articles in this volume offer practical insights about how […]

Pencils Down

Rethinking High Stakes Testing and Accountability in Public Schools

Edited by Wayne Au and Melissa Bollow Tempel

This powerful collection from the groundbreaking Rethinking Schools magazine takes high-stakes standardized tests to task. Despite overwhelming evidence that the tests are invalid ways to measure teaching and learning — […]

Teaching for Joy and Justice

Re-imagining the Language Arts Classroom

Authored By Linda Christensen

Teaching for Joy and Justice is the sequel to Linda Christensen’s bestselling Reading, Writing, and Rising Up. Christensen is recognized as one of the country’s finest teachers. Through stories, Christensen demonstrates […]

Unlearning ‘Indian’ Stereotypes

From the people who brought you Rethinking Columbus… Narrated by Native American children, Unlearning “Indian” Stereotypes is a multimedia DVD. It teaches about racial stereotypes and provides an introduction to Native […]

Rethinking Early Childhood Education

Edited By Ann Pelo

Rethinking Early Childhood Education is alive with the conviction that teaching young children involves values and vision. This anthology collects inspiring stories about social justice teaching with young children. Included […]

A People’s History for the Classroom

Authored by Bill Bigelow

A People’s History for the Classroom helps teachers introduce students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of U.S. history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula.

It includes a new introductory essay by veteran teacher Bill Bigelow on teaching strategies that align with Howard Zinn’s<em> A People’s History of the United States

These exemplary teaching articles and lesson plans — drawn from an assortment of Rethinking Schools publications — emphasize the role of working people, women, people of color, and organized social movements in shaping history, and raise important questions about patterns of wealth and power throughout U.S. history.

An understanding of the “people’s history of the United States” provides the perspective and analytical tools so important for making sense of Ñ and improving Ñ today’s world.

A People’s History for the Classroom was produced in cooperation with Teaching for Change, as part of the Zinn Education Project.

I can think of no better way to excite young people about the history of our country than to introduce them to the teaching activities in </em>A People’s History for the Classroom.”

   -Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 1 – Second Edition

Teaching for Equity and Justice

Edited by Wayne Au, Bill Bigelow, and Stan Karp

Since the first edition was published in 1994, Rethinking Our Classrooms has sold over 180,000 copies. This revised and expanded edition includes new essays on: science and environmental education immigration […]

The Line Between Us

Teaching About the Border and Mexican Immigration

Authored By Bill Bigelow

The Line Between Us explores the history of U.S-Mexican relations and the roots of Mexican immigration, all in the context of the global economy. And it shows how teachers can […]

Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 2

Teaching for Equity and Justice

Edited by Bill Bigelow, Brenda Harvey, Stan Karp, and Larry Miller

With more than 180,000 copies in print, the first volume of Rethinking Our Classrooms broke new ground, providing teachers with hands-on ways to promote values of community, justice, and equality […]

Rethinking Columbus Expanded Second Edition

The Next 500 Years

Edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson

Why rethink Christopher Columbus? Because the Columbus myth is a foundation of children’s beliefs about society. Columbus is often a child’s first lesson about encounters between different cultures and races. […]

Rethinking Globalization

Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World

Edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson

This comprehensive 400-page book from Rethinking Schools helps teachers raise critical issues with students in grades 4-12 about the increasing globalization of the world’s economies and infrastructures, and the many […]