Nurturing a Rainbow of Resistance to Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws
Christensen describes teaching high school students about new anti-LGBTQ+ laws — and the growing resistance to them.
People’s History
Why I Teach Look for Me in the Whirlwind
A review of Look for Me in the Whirlwind: From the Panther 21 to 21st-Century Revolutions edited by déqui kioni- sadiki and Matt Meyer.
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.
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.
Teaching the Reconstruction Revolution
A high school social studies teacher describes a lesson that uses improvisations, historical fiction, and found poems to help students appreciate the first era of Black power: Reconstruction.
Celebrating Howard Zinn
This year is the 100th anniversary of Howard Zinn’s birth. Zinn, who died in 2010 at 87, was a historian, professor, activist, and author of A People’s History of the United States, […]
Learning from — and Mourning — James Loewen
Loewen left a robust collection of books, articles, interviews, and generations of teachers he inspired to teach outside the textbook.
“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.
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.
More Than McCarthyism
Wolfe-Rocca critiques textbooks’ focus on McCarthyism and describes how, instead, she centers radical activists who have been victims of ongoing government harassment and repression.
Teaching A People’s History of the March on Washington
Nearly every child in the United States learns about Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The March on Washington, where King delivered this speech, is one of […]
Who’s to Blame?
A middle school teacher organizes a tribunal for her students on responsibility for the COVID-19 crisis in the United States. Among those on trial are Mother Nature, Gen Z/Millennials, the Healthcare Industry, Racism and White Supremacy, the Chinese Government, the U.S. Government, and the Capitalist System.
Teach the Struggle for Voting Rights
Let’s bring the election of 2020 into our classrooms and help our students learn about democracy — and those who would subvert it.
“I Don’t Like China or Chinese People Because They Started This Quarantine”
On April 20, 2020, blogger LittleGrayThread made a Facebook post of a note her daughter had written. She reported that in a Zoom class meeting, one of her daughter’s 2nd-grade […]
Short Stuff 26.2
International Movement for Public Education Privatization, standardized tests, funding cuts, attacks on teachers’ unions and contracts—the issues that are central to teacher activism in the United States are international. In […]
Communities Struggle to Make Small Serve All
For the adjacent Chicago neighborhoods of Little Village and North Lawndale, two working-class, low-income communities (the former predominantly Latino/a and the latter African-American) on the southwest side of the city, […]
Reviews 21.3
Books
Review: Radio Free Oaxaca
Film Radio Free Oaxaca Un poquito de tanta verdad (A Little Bit of So Much Truth) Director: Jill Freidberg Corrugated Films, 2007 (www.corrugate.org) DVD. 93 min. By Kelley Dawson Salas Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad […]
Heroes or Cultural Icons? Of Thee I Sing : A Letter to My Daughters
Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My DaughtersBy Barack Obama Illustrated by Loren Long(Knopf, 2010) On the title page of President Barack Obama’s picture book, Of Thee I Sing: A […]
Who’s Crazy? Students Critique the The Gods Must Be Crazy
I wish I could say my colleagues Cresslyn Clay, Colin Pierce, and I had it all worked out from the beginning, and that we carefully crafted each nuance that prompted […]
Pump Up the Blowouts
This year is the 40th anniversary of the Chicana/o School Blowouts
Lies My Spanish Textbooks Tell
Latinos dance, they sing, they happily play baseball. And what great food!
Why We Should Teach Reconstruction
Unfortunately, the transformative history of Reconstruction has been buried. First by a racist tale masquerading as history and now under a top-down narrative focused on white elites. It’s long overdue we unearth the groundswell of activity that brought down the slavers of the South and set a new standard for freedom we are still struggling to achieve today.
When Showing Up Isn’t Showing Up
A language arts teacher describes a school board debate in which she merely showed up, instead of showing up and fighting for communities of color.
Our picks for books, videos, websites, and other social justice resources 33.3
Check out these valuable resources, reviewed by Rethinking Schools editors and Teaching for Change colleagues.