A simulation of an auction during a fifth-grade lesson about slavery last week is just the latest illustration of why we need better ways to teach hard history.
An important date awaits in April, and it’s coming sooner than April 15.The Census Bureau has designated April 1 as "National Census Day," the date for mailing census forms to bureau offices. Households that don’t get their forms sent off by then will get a visit from a census taker.
U.S. public schools are not branch offices of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That’s the message the Obama administration sent out in a letter to the nation’s school districts last week.
Last week, I had a chance to preview documentary films that showed how a strong arts program—and that could range from mariachi to Shakespeare to poetry slams—could turn struggling schools into powerhouses of energy and promise. Last night, millions of viewers got a chance to see what students from a school that values the arts look like—on the Academy Awards, no less.
Teaching Tolerance has named 77 schools—25 more than last year—from across the country as Mix It Up Model Schools for their exemplary efforts to foster respect and understanding among their students and throughout their campuses during the 2011-12 school year.
Jaci Jones (she/her) is a social justice educator with experience as a professional learning facilitator with Learning for Justice, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center and as a high school history teacher at John F Kennedy Memorial High School in Iselin, NJ. She completed her undergraduate education at Penn State University where she majored in Secondary Education and Social Studies, and minored in History and Dance. With a passion for human rights, Jaci completed her Masters in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Kean University where she now adjuncts, training teachers how to teach
Val Brown is the Principal Academic Officer for the Center for Antiracist Education. She believes that education is a vehicle for social change, and encourages educators to engage in public discourse about critical topics because it allows them to learn with and from others. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in Curriculum, Teaching and Teacher Education.
While we may feel overwhelmed in the aftermath of the overturned landmark decision, we are neither hopeless nor helpless. A social justice education expert offers suggestions.
Our online Teaching Hard History Text Library includes a wealth of primary and secondary source documents about slavery to share with students of all ages.