The Importance of Goodbye
A high school teacher explores how the dynamics of a classroom can change when a student leaves and what the effects can be on that student, the other students, and the teacher.
A high school teacher explores how the dynamics of a classroom can change when a student leaves and what the effects can be on that student, the other students, and the teacher.
An elementary school teacher developed the Quetzal Conundrum game to help students understand the impact of global warming in Costa Rica.
A school librarian describes children’s books with strong transgender characters and themes.
A teacher of color writes about obstacles he faced during his first year in the classroom and the support he received — and did not receive — from other teachers and administrators.
The staff advisor for their high school’s Queer-Straight Alliance delves into the complexities of a student-led training for teachers on the importance of using students’ preferred pronouns.
How 4th-grade students in Southern California were helped by their teachers to develop curriculum surrounding the mass deportation of U.S. citizens of Mexican heritage in the 1930s and pass a law to investigate what happened.
A high school teacher uses the #MeToo movement and students’ own experiences with apologies to interrogate the government’s 1993 apology to Native Hawaiians for the 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai’i.
A teacher in a predominantly white school and classroom describes how she chose to protect and educate one of her Black students, rather than use him to educate her white students.
It has always been an educator’s responsibility to act in solidarity with vulnerable students. But with President Donald Trump’s September declaration that he will end DACA, we are called on to be more audacious, more resolute, and more imaginative in our solidarity with the 800,000 undocumented young people who now face a frightening uncertainty about their future in the United States.
An elementary teacher tells how she works to include her Muslim students in the life of her classroom. “We can use or create curriculum and projects that allow students to learn about and incorporate their culture and religious practices if they want to. We can be deliberate in including, making space for, and recognizing our students in all aspects of their identities. Making schools inclusive doesn’t have to be a guessing game.”
To all of my students: I believe you.
Every Monday morning Lilly would walk into our 1st-grade classroom with downcast eyes and a heavy heart. She would wait for everyone to settle in and then quietly beckon me over to her seat and say, “My head hurts.”
It became a routine. I would stroke her head and say, “I know you miss your dad. Let’s try participating in school and see if it helps you feel better.” This seems like a reasonable response from a seasoned veteran teacher in her 31st year of teaching. My message to Lilly was I understand children, I understand your life, and I know what is best for you.
Recently, a Rethinking Schools editor was a chaperone on a field trip when he overheard a 2nd-grade student talking about how he wanted to “nuke the world.” Taken aback, he […]
A teacher uses poetry and the creation of found poems as a way to get her students to think beyond the simple “two sides to every story” narrative of the Vietnam War.
A teacher wrestles with explaining refugee crises, dictators, and the trauma of war to her 1st- and 2nd- grade classroom.
Using Marshallese poet and climate justice activist Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner’s poem “Dear Matafele Peinam,” a teacher helps 7th graders think about the sacred spaces in their own lives and how they will be affected by climate change.
A kindergarten teacher uses images, literature, poetry, and collages — as well as her own history — to challenge students’ implicit bias and preconceived notions surrounding the color black and to teach the lesson that Black is beautiful.
A paraprofessional exposes the harm of substituting compliance for content at a school for special needs students.
One of a Kind, Like Me/Unico como yo by Larin Mayeno // Illustrated by Robert Liu-Trujillo // Blood Orange Press, 2016 Jacob’s New Dress by Sarah and Ian Hoffman // […]
An introduction to persona poems, which ask students “to find that place inside themselves that connects with a moment in history, literature, life.”
An early elementary school teacher combines a science lesson and poetry to encourage children to celebrate their own skin tone and that of their classmates.
Instead of leaving “the puberty talk” to the nurse, an elementary teacher incorporates age-appropriate discussion into her regular classroom routine.
The chief architect of the Common Core created a model lesson of a close reading of King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” A teacher from Birmingham compares that to King’s own critical reading of the “word” and the “world.”
Teaching a People’s History of Abolition and the Civil War is a collection of 10 classroom-tested lessons on one of the most transformative periods in U.S. history. These lessons encourage […]
Newly revised and expanded third edition! This expanded third edition of The New Teacher Book grew out of Rethinking Schools workshops with early career teachers. It offers practical guidance on […]
As part of a growing nationwide movement to bring Ethnic Studies into K-12 classrooms, Rethinking Ethnic Studies brings together many of the leading teachers, activists, and scholars in this movement […]