“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.
Classroom Practice
Zinn at 100: The Scourge of Nationalism
In honor of Zinn, we are featuring a “Zinn at 100” essay in each issue of Rethinking Schools this year. This is not nostalgia. We commemorate and celebrate Zinn for his ongoing relevance in helping us think about education and activism.
How State Standards Misteach the Meaning of One of the United States’ Most Important Eras
Wolfe-Rocca shares the results of the first-ever comprehensive review of state standards on Reconstruction, noting that Zinn Education Project researchers found that the standards fail to define the era or outline its crucial themes. The article also offers what the Zinn Education Project proposes for state and district standards.
As States Build Barriers to Racial Justice Teaching, Educators Fight Back
Teachers nationwide have been standing up to register their resistance and solidarity, organizing rallies, supporting school board candidates who reject these bills, and doubling down on their own efforts to learn and teach about race.
Sin Fronteras
Alexander and their middle school students use the powerful poem “To live in the borderlands means you,” by Gloria Anzaldúa, to explore the borderlands of their own lives.
Listening Between the Lines
A music teacher stories her tense journey to listen to and include a parent in her child’s education.
Big Reactions to Small Steps
Harrington Pangallo describes pushback for reading a book to answer a student question — “What does gay mean?” — and her response.
What I Wish I Had Said
An elementary teacher stories her struggle to speak up to a colleague about a racist nickname.
The Read-Around
Raising writers By Linda Christensen The read-around is the classroom equivalent to quilt making or barn raising. It is the public space—the zócalo or town square—of my room. During our […]
Who Cares About Classroom Norms?
A school teacher and his students radically reimagine classroom “norms” by focusing on needs-based reflections.
Shape-Shifting Segregation Policies
A teacher educator helps preservice teachers understand the history of how Mexican Americans have been racialized as Black and white at different times to keep them out of white schools.
New Online Workshop Series from Rethinking Schools
Join The New Teacher Book editors, authors, and early career teacher-scholars who wrote and shaped this book. Sign up for the entire workshop series or sign up for one workshop at a time.
Teaching Voting Rights in the Time of Coronavirus
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the 15th Amendment, which promised “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or […]
How Google Classroom Erases Trans Students
There are so many voices right now grieving what we have lost with the school closure — our relationships with students and co-workers, the laughter and energy that echo down […]
Showing Up for Our Students in the Pandemic
“I just want to be done. Just tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it,” Haylee wrote to me in an email. A month after school closed on […]
I Hate the Pandemic, but I’m Grateful to Be Rid of Grades
I hate this pandemic. But, I am also humbled by the little bundle of destructive protein that has put our American way of doing things on pause. And kind of like […]
My Grades Will Not Be Instruments of War
How we grade students — or whether we grade students — has always been contested terrain. The pandemic has brought new attention to the politics of grading. In the 1960s, […]
Talking to Young Children About COVID-19
COVID-19 descended upon Seattle, seeping in like a fog first in small ways, then eventually in signals we couldn’t ignore. Stores were empty, hours at our early childhood center were […]
The Last Time
I went swimming for the last time last summer in late August. I had a tattoo planned for the next weekend, which would mean a few weeks of no swimming — […]
Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline
“Every man in my family has been locked up. Most days I feel like it doesn’t matter what I do, how hard I try—that’s my fate, too.”—11th-grade African American student, […]
The Classroom to Prison Pipeline
A master teacher faces a classroom revolt. She realizes that, no matter how imminent the high-stakes test, stopping the school-to-prison pipeline begins in the classroom with student-centered, meaningful curriculum.
Teaching Haniyah
Several years ago, I taught a unit on power in my 9th-grade social studies classes at Berkeley High School in California’s Bay Area. It’s a diverse school—rich folks from the […]
Bad Signs
What are the real messages in the inspirational slogans covering classroom walls? Plus some better alternatives.
Rethinking MySpace
As an educator constantly searching for ways to use popular culture in my classroom
Textbook Scripts, Student Lives
Textbooks