The Day of Silence
A high school teacher navigates the tensions that arise in conversations with students about the Day of Silence, and how to bridge divides.
English
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.
The Chilling Effects of So-Called Critical Race Theory Bans
Teacher educators describe how teachers interpret Tennessee’s “Prohibited Concepts in Instruction” law; vague language suppresses — educators resist.
Goodbye to Ari Bloomekatz
This fall, Rethinking Schools’ managing editor Ari Bloomekatz accepted the position of executive editor at the venerable social justice magazine In These Times. We will miss Ari’s humor, imagination, warmth, […]
Teaching the Reconstruction Revolution
A high school social studies teacher describes a lesson that uses improvisations, historical fiction, and found poems to help students appreciate the first era of Black power: Reconstruction.
What Catalina Taught Me About Inclusion
Asking a student about her communication preferences brings interdependence and solidarity into a kindergarten classroom.
More Than McCarthyism
Wolfe-Rocca critiques textbooks’ focus on McCarthyism and describes how, instead, she centers radical activists who have been victims of ongoing government harassment and repression.
The Resurgence of Teacher Unions
Inouye and Potter share organizing strategies from the 2019 United Teachers Los Angeles and Chicago Teachers Union strikes, which centered common good demands.
In Our Hands
In the introduction to her new anthology, The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, Jesmyn Ward quotes James Baldwin: “Everything now, we must assume, is in our […]
“Water Is Life” Teaching for Solidarity with Standing Rock
Mni Wiconi—”water is life.” That has been the cry of one of the most inspiring struggles in modern U.S. history. The Standing Rock Sioux—along with Indigenous and non-Indigenous allies—have been […]
My So-Called Public School
A teacher uses her own school to illustrate how school foundations perpetuate inequality within districts and states.
My Night at the Planetarium
My Night in the Planetarium:A True Story About a Child, a Play, and the Art of ResistanceBy Innosanto NagaraSeven Stories Press, 2016 In difficult times, stories are vital. They are […]
Who’s Stealing Our Jobs?
As a way to deal with racial tensions between his Black and Latina/o students, a high school teacher examines the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Our picks for books, videos, websites, and other social justice education resources 31.2
Check out these valuable resources, reviewed by Rethinking Schools editors and Teaching for Change colleagues.
Passion Counts: The “I Love” Admissions Essay
Seniors write admissions essays based on something they feel passionate about, discovering at the same time that they are “college material.”
Space for Young Black Women: An Interview with Candice Valenzuela
The story of the development, challenges, and successes of a support group for Black girls at an Oakland, California, high school.
Mexican Teachers Fight Corporate Reform
“What they’re doing to us is subtle genocide,” Euterio Garcia, an Indigenous teacher from Oaxaca, Mexico, told reporter Shirin Hess. “I am a bilingual teacher for Chinanteco and Spanish. I […]
What’s Your Story?
A high school English teacher and a media arts teacher team up to teach a unit on identity. Students combine personal writing with vivid photography, creating large banners that become public art.
Fighting to Teach Climate Justice
There remains a huge gulf between the human and ecological consequences of the climate crisis and the puny attention given to the crisis in the school curriculum. The few paragraphs […]
Racism, Xenophobia, and the Election
As teachers and students return to classrooms this fall, together we have to try to make sense of a tumultuous presidential campaign and a summer of racial violence that have […]
Our picks for books, videos, websites, and other social justice education resources 31.1
Check out these valuable resources, reviewed by Rethinking Schools editors and Teaching for Change colleagues.
Sabrina’s Story
Third-grader Sabrina isn’t thriving in her self-contained special education classroom. Her parents believe that she would do better in an inclusion classroom, and they collaborate with teachers and staff to make it a success.
Medical Apartheid: Teaching the Tuskegee Syphilis Study
Students in a bioethics class are horrified to learn about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, during which African American men were denied treatment for syphilis. They draw connections to other medical injustices and write their own codes of ethics for medical research.
Push Out: Racial Dynamics at a Turnaround School
A teacher educator is hired as a mentor by a turnaround school’s new principal. He soon realizes he is being asked to cover for getting rid of an excellent teacher of color.
All American Boys
Two authors collaborated to write a nuanced novel from the perspectives of two young men—Rashad, who is Black, and Quinn, who is white. The novel gives teachers a powerful tool to discuss police brutality and racism with students.