Teaching the Truth About National Parks
An environmental justice teacher engages students in an examination of the problematic history of national parks.
Curriculum Articles
The Story of the Chicago Young Lords for Teachers
A Chicago educator discusses the creation of a new curriculum on the Young Lords, one of the most imaginative and effective organizations of the 1960s.
No, Anti-Zionism Is Not Antisemitism
Bigelow describes a new lesson on the roots of the violence in Palestine — and argues that history shows that anti-Zionism is not automatically antisemitism.
Community Building as World Building
An early elementary teacher details an engineering unit. Students design a model community — with no police or banks — in which everyone gets what they need.
Books Aren’t Enough to Challenge Rape Culture
A high school English teacher describes how she encouraged students to disrupt and speak out against rape culture while reading the novel Speak.
Rethinking Multicultural Education 3rd Edition
Practical, rich in story, and analytically sharp, Rethinking Multicultural Education can help current and future educators as they seek to bring racial and cultural justice into their own classrooms.
What Makes a Baby, Really?
An 8th-grade teacher creates inclusive resources about human reproduction with his students.
The Heroes We Need Today: Teaching About the Radical Ida B. Wells
A high school social studies teacher describes his mixer lesson in which students learn about the radical Ida B. Wells by taking on roles from various times in her life.
Writing for Justice
Christensen has students reimagine literature and their own stories to talk back to and disrupt injustice — and build solidarity.
Teaching that Food Justice Is Racial Justice
Swinehart highlights the work of Leah Penniman to teach about the connection between food and racial justice.
Teaching Debt Pollution in Schools
A high school teacher has students problematize the conditions of their school to learn about funding disparities and the disastrous effects of district debt.
What Is a Family?
A biology teacher describes inclusive teaching about families; sexual, reproductive, and parenting behaviors; and models of heredity.
“We Cannot Create What We Cannot Imagine”
To imagine a better future, high school students role-play activists at a visioning conference and then create murals.
To the Past, with Love
The letters are sweet and encouraging — had they been delivered, they could have changed their recipients’ lives.
The Voice of a Seed
I hope that centering Indigenous voices in the classroom and school garden will teach my students the value of Indigenous ways of knowing. As they develop an awareness of the social injustice and resilience that characterizes the stories of Indigenous peoples and their food cultures, I want them to be dissatisfied with the absence of Native narratives and seek out the voices of the tribes themselves.
Reproductive Justice and Our Classrooms
There is no end-point in the fight for justice and equality, no moment when the argument is finally settled. As Angela Davis has said, “Freedom is a constant struggle.” Although that proposition seems exhausting, it is also hopeful. If our wins are never wholly secure, then neither must our losses be permanent. The struggle for reproductive justice continues, and our curriculum must nurture our students’ capacity to envision and participate in its next stages.
Expanding Intersectional Queer History in the Elementary Grades
A 5th- and 6th-grade teacher asks her students to wrestle with what “identity” and “intersectionality” mean.
As She Rises
I recently stumbled across a podcast that made a wonderful addition to my students’ study of the climate crisis — As She Rises.
Action Research for Environmental Justice in the Kindergarten Classroom
A kindergarten teacher helps students investigate issues of environmental justice — like access to green space — in their communities.
Choreographing for Justice
An elementary teacher helps her students express themselves about social justice issues like the murder of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter through movement and dance, and helps them see how dance can celebrate diversity.
Poetic Pauses During the Pandemic
Christensen describes how poetry can be used in this moment to be something concrete — that can be felt, touched, or smelled — but also something to stir our students’ imaginations, allowing them to dream.
Teaching for Peace in a Time of War
Like you, we are angry and fearful about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and these are terrifying times for our students. As Ukrainian educator Igor Tsyvgintsev reminds us, “The entire curriculum of school studies comes down to humaneness.”
“Who Spent Two Months in Jail for Participating in the Freedom Rides?!”
A 5th-grade teacher devises a mixer activity to help her students understand that the Civil Rights Movement was not fueled only by great leaders, but also by ordinary people who became change makers and organized with others.
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.
The People v. the Hip-Hop Industry
A high school teacher and her students question “Who owns and controls hip-hop?” — and put the hip-hop industry on trial.