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.
English
The Problem with Story Problems
A teacher educator critiques the biases of story problems in math textbooks. Teachers around the country offer creative alternatives.
As a Teacher and a Daughter: The Impact of Islamophobia
A Canadian teacher discusses the impact of Islamophobia on students, especially those who are Muslim and/or from the Middle East.
The Politics of the Paragraph
The tale of a high school English teacher’s journey into—and out of—formulaic writing programs as her school struggles with high-stakes exams.
“Kill the Indian, Kill the Deaf”
Parallels in the oppressive history of residential schools for Native American and Deaf children help Deaf students better understand their history and culture.
A Teacher’s Letter to His Future Baby
A teacher writes about his hopes for the person his child will become—and some of the dangers along the way.
Rethinking Identity: Afro-Mexican History
Latina/o students explore the impact of African roots on Mexican culture and history.
Classrooms of Hope and Critique
In the introduction to our book Rethinking Our Classrooms, we quote the late, great Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, who urged teachers to “live part of their dreams within their educational […]
Letters to the Editor 30.4
Personal Cost of War I just finished my second reading of Chris Hawking’s, “Cracking the Box: The Personal Cost of War”(winter 2015-16). Both times his story literally brought tears to my […]
Schools, Land, and Peace in Colombia
Medellín, Colombia—I knew from the invitation that this would not be a normal school visit. My wife, Barbara, and I were to travel into the Andes Mountains to visit an […]
Short Stuff 30.4
FBI Tells Schools to Spy on Students A new initiative of the FBI’s Combating Violent Extremism (CVE) program urges high schools to report students who criticize government policies as potential […]
Our picks for books and other resources for social justice teaching 30.4
Check out these valuable resources, reviewed by Rethinking Schools editors and Teaching for Change colleagues.
Freedom Summer in Greenwood
In Revolution, 12-year-old Sunny Fairchild is dealing with troubling family issues—an absent mother, a new, pregnant stepmother, a stepbrother and stepsister. And then Northern “invaders” show up to register Black […]
Letters 29.4
Unfair to Behaviorists? The author of “They Deserve Good Teaching, Too: Social Justice in a Classroom for Students with Autism” (spring 2015) has misrepresented to your readership what Applied Behavior […]
Our picks for books and other resources for social justice teaching 29.4
Check out these valuable resources, reviewed by Rethinking Schools editors and Teaching for Change colleagues.
Saul Alinsky Lives!
People Power: The Community Organizing Tradition of Saul AlinskyEdited by Aaron Schutz and Mike MillerVanderbilt University Press, 2015 Fifteen years ago, I was part of a community organizing effort that […]
When They Tried to Steal Our Classrooms
Teachers learn that the district’s plan for a desperately needed school renovation is based on “100 percent utilization” — teachers will rotate through classrooms, losing the home bases students depend on. They organize to change the plan.
What Happened to Spanish?
A 3rd-grade bilingual teacher describes how administrators’ anxiety about standardized test results erodes both a school’s commitment to Spanish literacy and students’ love for learning.
Ebola: Teaching Science, Race, and the Media
Two teacher educators encourage their students to think about the impact of racial and colonial biases on media coverage of science issues—and on scientists.
Lead Poisoning
Building on the lead-poisoned water scandal in Flint, Michigan, a Chicago chemistry teacher helps her students explore lead poisoning in their own city.
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.
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.
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.
Racial Justice Is Not a Choice
High-stakes tests have not only failed to achieve racial equality in schooling, they’ve also made it worse for students of color.
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.