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 — […]

Coronavirus and Our Schools

We asked a group of teachers and students to write about their experience of school during the pandemic. We left it open-ended, but suggested they write about a particular experience that stood […]

The Pandemic Is a Portal

Who can use the term “gone viral” now without shuddering a little? Who can look at anything anymore — a door handle, a cardboard carton, a bag of vegetables — […]

The Freedom to Harm vs. the Freedom from Harm

The smartest piece I have read during the COVID-19 era is Ibram X. Kendi’s May 4 Atlantic article “We’re Still Living and Dying in the Slaveholders’ Republic.” When armed demonstrators […]

An Unnatural Disaster

During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, grassroots activists in New York City galvanized to try to meet the needs of those affected as well as to respond politically to issues […]

A Message from a Black Mom to Her Son

An African American mother and teacher educator uses examples from her own childhood to describe how she hopes her child will be treated by teachers, and what she fears.

Testing Our Limits

First graders, three at a time, use classroom computers to take standardized tests. Their teacher explains the impact on the students and herself.

Haniyah’s Story

Haniyah wrote this article as a 17-year-old participant in Project WHAT! a program of Community Works West, based in Berkeley, Calif. The young people in Project WHAT! all have family […]

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 […]

Keepers of the Second Throat

When Chicago stole my mother’s tongue, it also stole all her yesterdays. A poet’s lyric plea for teachers to nurture their students voices and stories.

Fuzzy Math

A middle school writing teacher reflects on a day spent scoring districtwide math tests.

Everything Flowers

I noted the biased curriculum… the absence of lessons on the Chicano movement or other aspects of my history and culture