Editors of Rethinking Schools
“The alphabet is abolitionist.” This powerful statement comes from an 1867 Harper’s Weekly editorial rallying its mostly Northern readers to the fight for robust public education as part of the […]
the editors of Rethinking Schools
Fifty years ago — on April 30, 1970 — the U.S. military invaded Cambodia in an expansion of the Vietnam War. In response, students across the country staged massive demonstrations. […]
the editors of Rethinking Schools
Israel’s war on Gaza and the simultaneous crackdown on dissent has given another boost to the forces of repression.
Terry Burant
A teacher’s sports enthusiasm sparks a reflection.
Itoro Udofia
An educator reflects on how the education system has continually tested her Blackness from grade school through professional development, and argues that we need more Black spaces to nurture brilliance.
Linda Christensen
During a recent conversation, a former high school classmate said, “I always wondered why you left Eureka. I heard that something shameful happened, but I never knew what it was.”
Yes, something shameful happened. My former husband beat me in front of the Catholic Church in downtown Eureka. He tore hunks of hair from my scalp, broke my nose, and battered my body. It wasn’t the first time during the nine months of our marriage. When he fell into a drunken sleep, I found the keys he used to keep me locked inside and I fled, wearing a bikini and a bloodied white fisherman’s sweater. For those nine months I had lived in fear of his hands, of drives into the country where he might kill me and bury my body. I lived in fear that if I fled, he might harm my mother or my sister.
I carried that fear and shame around for years. Because even though I left the marriage and the abuse, people said things like “I’d never let some man beat me.” There was no way to tell them the whole story: How growing up and “getting a man” was the goal, how making a marriage work was my responsibility, how failure was a stigma I couldn’t bear.
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Ayva Thomas
Emdin discusses teaching that values who students are, learning environments, science and math as tools for justice, and dream culture.
Kathryn Joyce
As an example of how the right is waging war on teacher education programs, teacher unions, and the teaching profession itself, Arizona has rolled back teacher licensing rules. We could see similar measures proposed in other parts of the country.
Kate Lyman
An elementary school teacher describes how she tries to teach past the platitudes of the Civil Rights Movement.
Check out these valuable resources, reviewed by Rethinking Schools editors and Teaching for Change colleagues.
Deborah Meier
It’s time to consider how to create schools that are themselves centers for the continual learning of everyone involved
Wayne Au
The problem is this: Testing is killing education. Not only is it narrowing the curriculum generally
the editors of Rethinking Schools
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.”
Christopher B. Knaus
A teacher educator is hired as a mentor by a turnaround school’s new principal. He soon realizes he is being asked to cover for getting rid of an excellent teacher of color.
Adam Sanchez
A high school teacher uses a role play so students can imagine life during Reconstruction, the possibilities of the post-Civil War era, and the difficult decisions that Black communities had to wrestle with.
Bob Peterson
The president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association describes paths and pitfalls in moving beyond bread and butter issues to social justice unionism.
Cierra Kaler-Jones
In her new book, The Spirit of Our Work: Black Women Teachers (Re)member, Cynthia Dillard (now dean of the College of Education at Seattle University) provides language for what occurs when Black women teachers discover their spiritual wisdom and identities that are part of a long historical continuum of Black women’s resistance, creativity, and ultimately, their healing.
Samia Shoman
A social studies teacher uses conflicting narratives to engage students in studying the history of Palestine/Israel, focusing on the events of 1948.
Bakari Chavanu
Despite an abundance of engaging Black literature, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” remain high school students’ primary introduction to issues of race and racial oppression.”
Mara Sapon-Shevin
Four children are gathered on the floor doing a cooperative learning lesson on animal habitats. The children’s task is to sort a set of picture cards into appropriate habitats and […]
When I was in high school, my senior English teacher told me, “You’re just a big fish in a small pond now. Wait until you get to college. Then you’ll […]
Linda Christensen
Christensen argues that the tight reliance on the format of the literary analysis hinders students’ imaginations, and that they should instead write “unbound” essays of risk-taking and experimentation.
Deborah Meier
“A Nation Prepared” the report of the Carnegie Corporation on teaching as a profession, speaks very strongly to many of the issues school people are concerned about today. It is […]
Linda Christensen
Christensen teaches the writing process by encouraging students to celebrate beloved places with the haibun, a Japanese poetic form.
