Katie is a high school writing and English teacher at The Hill Center, a K–12 school for children with learning differences in Durham, North Carolina. She previously taught at a middle school in Boston and at a secondary school in rural Tanzania. Mgongolwa has a passion for diversifying curricula, helping students and teachers develop strategies for courageous conversations, and working with schools to close the opportunity gap.
Monita K. Bell is Learning for Justice’s former associate director for editorial and host of The Mind Online podcast. Before joining LFJ, she taught composition and literature courses at Auburn University and Alabama State University; she has also worked as an online writing tutor. Bell is the author of Getting Hair “Fixed”: Black Power, Transvaluation, and Hair Politics.
Charter schools tailored to the needs of newly arrived immigrants are getting a lot of attention. But are they working? And will they lead to a new kind of segregation?
No matter how educators identify or how long they have been teaching, it’s critical that they reflect on their ability to discuss race, racial (in)equality and racism—past and present—with students. This toolkit offers strategies for how educators can engage in this reflection and strengthen their practice.
This shortest month of the year is typically filled with history reports, pageants, guest speakers, cultural fairs and the like. Seldom a day goes by that we don't hear the names of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Madame C.J. Walker, George Washington Carver, and so on.
In my eighth-grade language arts classroom, we use discussion as a vehicle for learning, thinking, writing, posing and defending arguments, questioning and reviewing—just about everything. And as can be expected, we sometimes digress from the topic at hand.
Students are dying. On Nov. 27, Josh Pacheco took his own life. He had come out as gay to his mother a couple months before his death. His parents learned recently that Josh had been bullied at school.