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.
Social/Emotional Learning
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 […]
Can’t Buy Me Love
Linda Christensen gets students to write critically about clothes, class, and consumption.
On the Question of Mexicanidad
Encouraging prospective teachers to examine their cultural heritage.
Raised by Women
Building classroom relationships through poetry.
‘Use Another Word’
One school’s campaign against put-downs.
It’s a Good Thing
Teachers can help students express values both in and outside of the classroom.
Forgive and Remember
Teaching forgiveness through poetry and art.
Honor Their Names
Students’ names are the first thing teachers know about the young people who enter our classrooms; they can signal country of origin, gender, language. Students’ names provide the first moment when a teacher can demonstrate their warmth and humanity, their commitment to seeing and welcoming students’ languages and cultures into the classroom.
Welcome Poems Trump Hate
A teacher creates a welcome poems lesson to celebrate the diversity of students — and with students.
Sharing Our Real Selves
A special education teacher talks about the importance of sharing her own stories — and complexities — 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.
Who Do I Belong To?
A teacher in a predominantly white school and classroom describes how she chose to protect and educate one of her Black students, rather than use him to educate her white students.
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.
“No One is Going to Tell Us What is Right”
A journalist explores the way Indigenous language and community is connected to the classroom in several communities in Alaska, and explores how educators there have built new frameworks to fight against Eurocentric curriculum.
The (Young) People’s Climate Conference
A teacher adapts the “Climate Change Mixer” designed for older students as a springboard for a unit on global warming and climate justice.
Love for Syria
A teacher wrestles with explaining refugee crises, dictators, and the trauma of war to her 1st- and 2nd- grade classroom.
Girls Against Dress Codes
“Ugh, Dress Codes!” The title of one of 15-year-old Izzy Labbe’s SPARK Movement blog posts encapsulates what I’ve heard so many girls say they feel about their middle and high […]
EDITORIAL: Little Kids, Big Ideas
Recently, a Rethinking Schools editor was a chaperone on a field trip when he overheard a 2nd-grade student talking about how he wanted to “nuke the world.” Taken aback, he […]
Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us
Students analyze cartoons from Popeye to Brave to see how media teaches children white- and male-supremacist ideas.
‘Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality’ and the Power of Grassroots Activism
The youth on our cover is Lana “kQween” Grant. She was photographed by Lois Bielefeld as part of her Androgeny series. kQween’s pride—and the empathy and respect of Bielefeld’s image—are […]