Peacekeepers and Peacemakers

Green and her students critique the idea that good citizens follow rules, and then study activists who make — rather than keep — peace in the face of injustice.

Bad Signs

What are the real messages in the inspirational slogans covering classroom walls? Plus some better alternatives.

Everything Flowers

I noted the biased curriculum… the absence of lessons on the Chicano movement or other aspects of my history and culture

Acting In and On the World

Oregon students and teachers learn life lessons by participating in the ‘Theater of the Oppressed’.

Taking A Chance With Words

None of my schools issued uniforms. What I did wear was a uniform in my head which kept me in line, out of trouble. It was a suit which had […]

Welcome Poems Trump Hate

A teacher creates a welcome poems lesson to celebrate the diversity of students — and with students.

“Do You Have Batman Shoulders?”

A math teacher uses Barbies and action figures to teach proportional reasoning and other skills — and to help students think about society’s expectations of our shapes and sizes.

Jailing Our Minds

An education researcher explores “no-excuses” discipline policies and the rate of out-of-school suspensions at charter schools in Denver and around the nation. “Democracy is healthiest when our educational institutions reflect our best virtues — creativity, joy, and growth. We must strengthen our oversight over no-excuses charter schools, thereby ensuring that no child in that city — or our country — is subjected to policies that could have been culled from one of Denver’s neighboring prisons.”

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.