Ellen Fracassini taught seventh and eighth grade for 10 years in New York City public schools, where she also held various teacher leadership positions. She earned her master’s degree from Fordham University in Secondary English Education. She is an experienced ELA curriculum writer and currently teaches seventh and eighth grade in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, public schools.
This image group features portraits of Frederick Douglass, Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano, who all learned to read and write while they were enslaved. Each used their gifts to help end slavery.
These images show how enslavers used chains as a way to take freedom away from enslaved people. This text contains sensitive images that may not be suitable for all students.
For the last few days, an “educational analyst” for Focus on the Family has been getting a lot of press. She’s been suggesting that anti-bullying efforts that draw attention to the harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students are part of a “gay agenda” to “sneak homosexuality lessons into classrooms.”
How do your students learn how to know? And what does your teaching look like in the face of a devaluing of shared truth, deepening political polarization and the mainstreaming of intolerance?
Telling only one story of civil rights marginalizes the voices we ignore. It also prevent us from doing exactly what the story of civil rights is supposed to teach us to do―fight for justice in our own communities as those before us did.
As my 10th-grade students came back from lunch, it was clear that a few of my more squirrely young men needed time to readjust to the ways of a classroom after being away all summer. “It’s just a joke between us, Mr. Greenslate,” said Aaron. “We all know Jason from outside of school, and so that’s just how we mess around. Once you know us better you’ll understand.”
“Will we be learning history from a biblical or counter-biblical perspective?” James asked. I could see an intense honesty in his eyes, one that I’m pretty sure only teachers know. It was another one of those moments