Rethinking Multicultural Education 3rd Edition
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.
Teacher Education
Teaching Historic and Contemporary Racism in Elementary Classrooms
A teacher educator uses the excellent picture book That Flag to explore ways to address race and racism in the classroom.
Writing for Justice
Christensen has students reimagine literature and their own stories to talk back to and disrupt injustice — and build solidarity.
“Take These Nametags Off!”
A doctoral student tells the story of her experience with a dangerous role play — poorly conceptualized and taught — when she was an undergrad.
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.
Crisis, Change, and Canceling the Teacher Performance Assessment
As former K–12 teachers who are now teacher educators in California, we share grave concern regarding the expectation for preservice teachers to complete their Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) in order […]
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 […]
Queer Matters
While we were excited to support the opening of the educational closet
Shaking Foundations
Virginia professors take on the state’s attempt to eliminate Social Foundations of Education” from required course work.”
On the Question of Mexicanidad
Encouraging prospective teachers to examine their cultural heritage.
Rethinking Our Classrooms Among Race and Education Books Censored at Illinois Prison
In late January, authorities at the Danville Correctional Center in east-central Illinois removed more than 200 titles from the prison’s library. One of the books that was confiscated was the Rethinking Schools book Rethinking Our Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice, first published in 1994 and edited by Bill Bigelow, Linda Christensen, Stan Karp, Barbara Miner, and Bob Peterson.
Our picks for books, videos, websites, and other social justice resources 33.4
Check out these valuable resources, reviewed by Rethinking Schools editors and Teaching for Change colleagues.
Making Room for Death
Death happens regularly, but a special education teacher describes her own mother’s death to show how schools leave no space for grief and try to hide death from the school community.
Macaroni Social Justice
A 3rd-grade teacher uses thousands of pieces of macaroni to facilitate a lesson about fractions and to spur classroom conversations about wealth inequality.
How Should We Sing Happy Birthday?
A kindergarten teacher looks at birthday celebrations in her classroom and whether all of her students’ home languages and rituals are being uplifted.
‘Billionaires Can’t Teach Our Kids’
There’s no need for teachers in other cities to reinvent the wheel: study Los Angeles.
40 Acres and a Mule
A high school teacher uses a role play so students can imagine life during Reconstruction, the possibilities of the post-Civil War era, and the difficult decisions that Black communities had to wrestle with.
Introducing the New, New Teacher Book
We need teachers who want to work in a place where human connections matter more than profit. We also wrote this book because we have had days — many days — where our teaching aspirations did not meet the reality of the chaos we encountered. We have experienced those late afternoons crying-alone-in-the-classroom kind of days when a lesson failed or we felt like our students hosted a party in the room and we were the uninvited guests. We wrote this book hoping it might offer solace and comfort on those long days when young teachers wonder if they are cut out to be a teacher at all.
Our House Is on Fire — Time to Teach Climate Justice
In the latest installment of our regular column “Earth, Justice, and Our Classrooms,” Rethinking Schools curriculum editor Bill Bigelow writes about global youth activism around climate justice and the urgency of the crisis, and introduces readers to the Zinn Education Project’s Teach Climate Justice campaign.
Why We Should Teach Reconstruction
Unfortunately, the transformative history of Reconstruction has been buried. First by a racist tale masquerading as history and now under a top-down narrative focused on white elites. It’s long overdue we unearth the groundswell of activity that brought down the slavers of the South and set a new standard for freedom we are still struggling to achieve today.
“I Can’t Make a Teacher Love My Son”
After teachers label her son’s behavior as problematic and try to have him evaluated by a psychologist, a Black parent uncovers why schools fail Black boys and begins organizing her community to challenge practices detrimental to them.
Doing Race Talk with Teachers
A teacher-educator describes how she keeps her students talking about race, even when it’s uncomfortable — and shows how those conversations make better teachers.
As an Arab American Muslim Mother, Here Is the Education I Want for My Children
A Palestinian American mother describes the alienation that she felt in school, and how she draws on her experiences to imagine the schooling she wants for her children.
Black Lives Matter at School: From the Week of Action to Year-Round Anti-Racist Pedagogy and Protest
Every social justice educator should make building the BLM at School Week of Action during the first week of February a top priority.
How One 2nd-Grader’s Story Inspired Climate Justice Curriculum
A 2nd-grade teacher shows how connecting a student’s home to the classroom led to profound lessons for all her students — in this case, about pipelines and climate justice.