Search

Kenji Ima recalls life in America's World War II prison camps. His daughter works with a Seattle-based educational theater company to share his story.

Many affluent students are oblivious to issues of race and class. Here are two teaching strategies designed to open their eyes.

You’re forgiven if you missed it. Late last month, Congress passed and President Obama signed a bill that included text that “apologizes … to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States.” Not only was news of the measure knocked from front pages by the health care debate and Tiger Woods, it was well-camouflaged within the 2010 defense appropriations bill.

For National Poetry Month, we departed from our typical prose-only style to present this special Why I Teach column.

There are some new labels kids have created for one another since I was in school. When I grew up, there were no skaters or noobs. No one was goth or emo. In my day, kids who wore collared shirts and madras were preppy. Kids who smoked cigarettes and listened to Led Zeppelin were burnouts. Jocks were still jocks, although the jocks of my youth were all-inclusive. Today, they separate themselves by sport.

When I teach lessons about Martin Luther King Jr., I always wonder exactly how students will connect with the events and themes. My adult students are refugees and immigrants from different cultural backgrounds. Some of them were cultural minorities in their countries. Others are experiencing racial discrimination for the first time in the United States.

Understanding key concepts about solidarity and the power of diverse coalitions can help students work toward justice.

This piece is to accompany James Loewen's feature story " Getting the Civil War Right." Recently I spent two years at the Smithsonian Institution surveying 12 popular American history textbooks, learning how teachers use