Volume 26, No.3

Spring 2012

Annual Subscription: $24.95

Purchase Digital Copy: $4.95

To purchase individual paper copies of the magazine email us or call customer service at 1-800-669-4192

  • Accountable to Our Students – Accountable to Their Communities

    Rethinking Schools has assembled two new books that focus on what teachers are really accountable for: the learning, empowerment, and well-being of their students. In this section of the magazine, we are honored to offer five new articles from those books.

  • A Message from a Black Mom to Her Son

    By Dyan Watson

    An African American mother and teacher educator uses examples from her own childhood to describe how she hopes her child will be treated by teachers, and what she fears.

  • Writing for Justice

    By Mark Hansen

    An elementary school teacher takes us inside his classroom to see how he builds on his students’ lives and passions to help them create persuasive essays.

  • About Those Tests I Gave You …

    An open letter to my students

    By Ruth Ann Dandrea

    A middle school language arts teacher apologizes to her students for the states narrow and deceptive standardized test.

  • Testing Our Limits

    By Melissa Bollow Tempel

    First graders, three at a time, use classroom computers to take standardized tests. Their teacher explains the impact on the students and herself.

  • Playing Smart

    By Wayne Au

    Scripted curriculum de-skills teachers and rewards students for passivity, not critical thinking. A teacher educator urges teachers to organize and fight back.

  • Challenging Corporate Ed Reform

    And 10 Hopeful Signs of Resistance

    By Stan Karp

    The failures of the corporate education “reform” movement leave it vulnerable to genuine grassroots school transformation.

  • Sin Fronteras Boy

    Students Create Collaborative Websites to Explore the Border

    By Grace Cornell

    Fourth-grade English language learners use wikis to study border issues and gain literacy skills.

  • Dirty Oil and Shovel-Ready Jobs

    A Role Play on Tar Sands and the Keystone XL Pipeline

    By Abby MacPhail

    High school students learn about the conflict over the pipeline by participating in a role play.

  • Occupy Education

    The South African poet and activist Breyten Breytenbach once said, “You Americans have mastered the art of living with the unacceptable.” We hope this is coming to an end—in schools, […]

  • Outlawing Solidarity in Arizona

    “Banned in Tucson.” As many Rethinking Schools readers know, in January Tucson school officials ordered our book Rethinking Columbus removed from Mexican American Studies classes, as part of their move to shut down the […]

  • Letters 26.3

    Someone sent me the link to Melissa Bollow Tempel’s “It’s OK to Be Neither” (Fall 2011). I just wanted to tell you I think what she’s doing is absolutely wonderful […]

  • “But You Guys Wanted Us Here”

    A film tackles the U.S. occupation of Japan

    By Moe Yonamine

    A film tackles the U.S. occupation of Japan.

  • Made in Seattle

    By Wayne Au

    Made in Seattle

  • Our picks for books, videos, websites, and other social justice resources 26.3

    Check out these valuable resources, reviewed by Rethinking Schools editors and Teaching for Change colleagues.