Teaching A People’s History of the March on Washington
Nearly every child in the United States learns about Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The March on Washington, where King delivered this speech, is one of […]
High School
Essay Unbound
Christensen argues that the tight reliance on the format of the literary analysis hinders students’ imaginations, and that they should instead write “unbound” essays of risk-taking and experimentation.
Teaching the Green New Deal: The Prequel
In an article introducing the student-friendly short video, A Message from the Future, about life after the Green New Deal, Naomi Klein points out: Almost every vision of the future […]
The Teaching for Black Lives Starter Pack
Get the free Teaching for Black Lives Starter Pack when you sign up today for email updates from Rethinking Schools.
Reparations Can Be Won — and Must Be Taught
The story of how activists, teachers, and, organizers won mandatory curriculum in the Chicago Public Schools for 8th and 10th grades about one the darkest chapters in the city’s history — the widespread torture of Black men under Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge.
Honoring Exonerees
A high school teacher helps her students explore how DNA testing is used to free innocent people from prison and how science can support justice.
Teach the Struggle for Voting Rights
Let’s bring the election of 2020 into our classrooms and help our students learn about democracy — and those who would subvert it.
New Online Workshop Series from Rethinking Schools
Join The New Teacher Book editors, authors, and early career teacher-scholars who wrote and shaped this book. Sign up for the entire workshop series or sign up for one workshop at a time.
Teaching Voting Rights in the Time of Coronavirus
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the 15th Amendment, which promised “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or […]
Short Stuff 26.2
International Movement for Public Education Privatization, standardized tests, funding cuts, attacks on teachers’ unions and contracts—the issues that are central to teacher activism in the United States are international. In […]
We Need to Ask Our Students to Dream — and to Dream Big
Back in the 1980s, I taught an elective class at Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon, called Literature and Social Change. It centered around the questions “What is a good […]
Teaching More Civics Will Not Save Us from Trump
A high school social studies teacher argues for rethinking how we teach civics so that students learn that organizing, activism, and civil disobedience are as important as the Constitution.
“But You Guys Wanted Us Here”
A film tackles the U.S. occupation of Japan.
Reviews 21.4
Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and RhymesWritten and Directed by Byron HurtMedia Education Foundation, 200660 mins, DVD The Hip-Hop Education Guidebook Volume 1: A Sourcebook of Inspiration and Practical ApplicationEdited by Marcella […]
Plotting Inequalities, Building Resistance
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Who’s Crazy? Students Critique the The Gods Must Be Crazy
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Dirty Oil and Shovel-Ready Jobs
High school students learn about the conflict over the pipeline by participating in a role play.
Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline
“Every man in my family has been locked up. Most days I feel like it doesn’t matter what I do, how hard I try—that’s my fate, too.”—11th-grade African American student, […]
The Classroom to Prison Pipeline
A master teacher faces a classroom revolt. She realizes that, no matter how imminent the high-stakes test, stopping the school-to-prison pipeline begins in the classroom with student-centered, meaningful curriculum.
Haniyah’s Story
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Teaching Haniyah
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Chicago’s Peace Warriors
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Teaching the Prison Industrial Complex
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Got Coal?
Students play a game promoted by the coal industry, then dig beneath the surface to look at the realities of mountaintop removal mining.
Coal at the Movies
Video resources for the classroom, plus links to activist websites.