Teaching Dance for Transformation

A dance teacher reflects on how to replace a pedagogy of control and policing with one that encourages creativity and liberation.

From the Art Build to the Streets

The author of A People’s Art History of the United States dissects the imagery unions created and used in the streets and on the picket lines during the 2019 Chicago teachers strike.

What Can Art Do in the Perilous Present?

An artist and academic writes about art builds — how they are practices of resistance and solidarity, and celebrations of joy and justice to fuel the teachers’ rebellion and other movements.

“Young Women Like Me”

Since 1993, the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez has been shaken by disappearances of teenage girls and young women. Officials say they have few leads. The murders in Juárez have received some international attention, primarily due to government inaction. Yet little has been done by the government to prevent violence against women and girls, as officials neglect to bring their perpetrators to justice.

Residents do not let these deaths go unnoticed as hundreds of pink crosses — a symbol of these missing women — dot the border. An increase in these deaths coincided with the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). A treaty between Mexico, the United States, and Canada, NAFTA sought to increase investment opportunities by eliminating tariffs and, like many other economic agreements, benefited the economic elites of the three countries while resulting in widespread unemployment, increased class stratification, and mass emigration. Most of the “disappeared” women work in assembly plants or maquiladoras, owned by the United States and transnational corporations that dashed to northern Mexico post-NAFTA to reap the benefits of lower wages and lax environmental regulation.

Black is Beautiful

A kindergarten teacher uses images, literature, poetry, and collages — as well as her own history — to challenge students’ implicit bias and preconceived notions surrounding the color black and to teach the lesson that Black is beautiful.