Articles

Join the conversation on priority issues in our nation’s public education system and find resources, suggestions and news.

445 ARTICLES

June 29, 2012

Are Your Students Targets of Racial Profiling?

It’s summertime, and students have replaced class time with free time. In the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, parents and teachers are painfully aware of the widespread racial profiling targeting men of color—particularly younger men who are more apt to be out and about during these summer months.

Topic

Race & Ethnicity Rights & Activism

June 26, 2012

Notes of Apology Offer Platform for Change

This past February, our school abandoned the traditional Valentine’s Day love note exchange, opting instead to encourage school-wide participation in a new activity we called the “Valentine’s Day Apology Note Project.”

Topic

Bullying & Bias Rights & Activism

June 11, 2012

Finding the Courage to Act

We each have a part to play, a role uniquely ours each day. I’d raised my hand often enough and spoke about equity and LGBT rights during my years in Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District to convince myself I was accomplishing the role I’d chosen when I decided to teach.

Topic

Gender & Sexual Identity Rights & Activism

May 15, 2012

Why Service Is a Skill Worth Learning

I overheard two students talking in class one day about their after-school plans. One said she would be volunteering at the local women’s shelter. I hurried over, excited to congratulate her on this great thing she was doing—being part of her community and supporting marginalized groups. Lesson plans were already beginning to form in my head: writing prompts about social awareness, student interviews with our populations of homeless, hungry, mentally and intellectually disabled and those in poverty. I imagined students writing editorials to the local newspaper about the needs of our community.

Topic

Rights & Activism

May 3, 2012

Discovering Ordinary Bravery in the Movement

Most students have heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. They also know of Rosa Parks’ refusal to move to the back of the bus. Unfortunately for many students, knowledge of the civil rights movement stops there.

Topic

Rights & Activism

April 27, 2012

The Case of the Missing Women

I held up the front page of our college newspaper and asked my first-year journalism students if any questions came to mind as they looked at the photographs of candidates running for president and vice president of our student government. It’s a multimedia storytelling class and the assignments for the week were about analyzing and taking photographs.

Topic

Gender & Sexual Identity Rights & Activism

April 18, 2012

Protecting the Future from Genocide

After the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel eloquently stated “never again.” Since he first uttered this compelling sentiment, genocides have erupted across the world—from Guatemala to Cambodia. April was chosen as Genocide Prevention Month since the Holocaust, Rwandan, Bosnian, Armenian and Cambodian genocides are commemorated during this time. The commemoration began in April 2009 and combined genocide remembrance with prevention.

Topic

Rights & Activism

April 11, 2012

Bring Social Justice Poetry to Your Classroom

Poet Adrienne Rich once asked: How can we connect the process of learning to write well with [a] student’s own reality, and not simply teach her/him how to write acceptable lies in standard English? The question appeared in her 1979 essay, “Taking Women Students Seriously.” Last week, Adrienne Rich passed away, leaving today’s educators to ponder alone a question that remains as pertinent as ever.

Topic

Rights & Activism

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