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.

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.

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, […]

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.

My So-Called Public School

A teacher uses her own school to illustrate how school foundations perpetuate inequality within districts and states.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 […]

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 […]