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Columbus resources | Zinn Education Project

It’s Columbus Day . . . Time to Break the Silence

By Bill Bigelow

This past January, almost exactly 20 years after its publication, Tucson schools banned the book I co-edited with Bob Peterson, Rethinking Columbus. It was one of a number of books adopted by Tucson’s celebrated Mexican American Studies program — a program long targeted by conservative Arizona politicians.

The school district sought to crush the Mexican American Studies program; our book itself was not the target, it just got caught in the crushing. Nonetheless, Tucson’s — and Arizona’s — attack on Mexican American Studies and Rethinking Columbus shares a common root: the attempt to silence stories that unsettle today’s unequal power arrangements.

It’s Constitution Day! Time to Teach Obedience or History?

By Bill Bigelow

Pearson-Prentice Hall’s high school textbook, United States History, opens its chapter on the Constitution with this Daniel Webster quote: “We may be tossed upon an ocean where we can see no land — not, perhaps, the sun and stars. But there is a chart and a compass for us to study, to consult, and to obey. The chart is the Constitution.” United States History tells students approvingly that Ronald Reagan and others have recited this Webster quote at celebrations of the Constitution.

This is the kind of on-bended-knee Constitution worship that has long been a staple of our country’s social studies curricula.

Sure, these days, most U.S. history textbooks acknowledge that the Constitution was not without controversy. Holt McDougal’s The Americans offers a perfunctory couple of pages on the debate between elite groups of Federalists and Anti-Federalists. But corporate textbooks present the Constitution as a wise inevitability, awaiting only the Bill of Rights as the icing on a delicious cake of compromise.

Howard Zinn at 90 — Lessons from the People’s Historian

By Bill Bigelow

This week — August 24 — would have been the 90th birthday of the great historian and activist Howard Zinn, who died in 2010. Zinn did not merely record history, he made it: as a professor at Spelman College in the 1950s and early 1960s, where he was ultimately fired for his outspoken support of students in the Civil Rights Movement, and specifically the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); as a critic of the U.S. war in Vietnam, and author of the first book calling for an immediate U.S. withdrawal; and as author of arguably the most influential U.S. history textbook in print, A People’s History of the United States. “That book will knock you on your ass,” as Matt Damon’s character says in the film Good Will Hunting.

Fists of Freedom: An Olympic Story Not Taught in School

By Dave Zirin

It has been almost 44 years since Tommie Smith and John Carlos took the medal stand following the 200-meter dash at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City and created what must be considered the most enduring, riveting image in the history of either sports or protest. But while the image has stood the test of time, the struggle that led to that moment has been cast aside.

When mentioned at all in U.S. history textbooks, the famous photo appears with almost no context. For example, Pearson/Prentice Hall’s United States History places the photo opposite a short three-paragraph section, “Young Leaders Call for Black Power.” The photo’s caption says simply that “. . . U.S. athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised gloved fists in protest against discrimination.”

The Truth About Helen Keller (Lesson) | Zinn Education Project

Who Stole Helen Keller?

By Ruth Shagoury

In these times of vast economic disparities and ecological crisis, children need examples of people throughout history who committed their lives to justice — to bringing more equality and fairness to the world. Helen Keller, whose birthday we celebrate this month — June 27th — could be one of those role models. Instead, textbooks and children’s literature distort her life’s work, and miss key opportunities to inspire young people to make a difference in the world.

Teaching Untold Stories During Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

By Moé Yonamine

“They’re Latinos . . . I think they’re some kind of farm workers.”

“No, they’re Asians with name tags.”

And then a student in a quiet voice walked by me slowly and muttered, “I think something really bad is happening to them.”

My students at Roosevelt High School in Portland, Oregon — one of the state’s most racially diverse schools — studied each black and white photo posted around the room, inspecting the background and the facial expressions; confused, anxious, frustrated. They began a journey to uncover the hidden story of the Japanese Latin American removal, internment, and deportation during World War II.

Changing the Climate in School

By Bill McKibben and Bill Bigelow

Maybe you’ve heard. We are facing a climate crisis that threatens life on our planet. Climate scientists are unequivocal: we are changing the world in deep, measurable, dangerous ways — and the pace of this change will accelerate dramatically in the decades to come.

Then again, if you’ve been a middle school or high school student recently, you may not know this.

That’s because the gap between our climate emergency and the attention paid to climate change in the school curriculum is immense. Individual teachers around the country are doing outstanding work, but the educational establishment is not.

Fasanella - The Great Strike | Zinn Education Project

One Hundred Years After the Singing Strike

By Norm Diamond

Today’s Occupy movement is a reminder that throughout U.S. history a major engine of change has been grassroots organizing and solidarity. As an old Industrial Workers of the World song goes:

An injury to one, we say’s an injury to all, United we’re unbeatable, divided we must fall. —“Dublin Dan” Liston, The Portland Revolution

Major history textbooks, however, downplay the role of ordinary people in shaping events, especially those who formed labor unions and used the strike to assert their rights. One of the most significant strikes in U.S. history occurred exactly 100 years ago, in the Lawrence, Mass. textile mills, and yet it merits barely a mention in the most widely used U.S. history textbooks.

Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (Teaching Guide) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

The New (and Improved?) Textbook Columbus

By Bill Bigelow

Recently, I ran across an old manual that described itself as “An easy step-by-step guide to obtain U.S. Citizenship.” A page of history and government questions begins:

Q: Who discovered America?
A: Christopher Columbus in 1492.

This was the simple, and simplistic, history that I learned in 4th grade in the early 1960s growing up in California — a kind of secular Book of Genesis: In the beginning, there was Columbus; he was good and so are we.

And it stayed the history that most everyone learned until the Columbus quincentenary in 1992 brought together Native Americans, social justice organizations, and educators to demand a more inclusive and critical version of what occurred in 1492 and after.

The Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated the United States

By Richard Rothstein

Racial segregation characterizes every metropolitan area in the United States and bears responsibility for our most serious social and economic problems — it corrupts our criminal justice system, exacerbates economic inequality, and produces large academic gaps between white and African American schoolchildren. We’ve taken no serious steps to desegregate neighborhoods, however, because we are hobbled by a national myth that residential segregation is de facto — the result of private discrimination or personal choices that do not violate constitutional rights.

Disguising Imperialism: How Textbooks Get the Cold War Wrong and Dupe Students

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

The perpetual interventionism and global hegemony exercised by the U.S. government today urgently need to be questioned and dismantled. Such a monumental task requires a citizenry armed with clear-eyed understandings of its past. That cannot be accomplished when the Cold War is sanitized and downsized, confined to one chapter of a textbook . . .

What the Koch Brothers Want Students to Learn About Slavery

By Adam Sanchez

Given that the billionaire Charles Koch has poured millions of dollars into eliminating the minimum wage and paid sick leave for workers, and that in 2015 he had the gall to compare his ultra-conservative mission to the anti-slavery movement, he’s probably the last person you’d want educating young people about slavery. Yet the history-teaching wing of the Koch brothers empire is seeking to promote an alternate narrative to slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.

Yup'ik village children preparing salmon | Zinn Education Project

Climate Change and School in a Yup’ik Fishing Village

Article. By Jill Howdyshell.
The author describes how climate change is hitting Indigenous communities in Alaska much harder than other places in the world. And yet, administrators still insist that school discussions should focus on student test scores.

Aerial photo of mountaintop removal | Zinn Education Project

From Mountaintop Removal to Divestment: The Story of Swarthmore Students’ Fight Against Fossil Fuels

Article. By Hannah Jones.
The global movement to get institutions to divest from fossil fuels began with students. This article tells the inspiring story.

Students Bring Reconstruction to Life 1 (Material) | Zinn Education Project

How My Students Brought Reconstruction to Life

Article. By Amy Trenkle.
One of the teachers who piloted the Make Reconstruction History Visible project with her students shares the process she used.

Teaching Activity by Amy Trenkle

Clyde Kennard Letter to the Editor, The American, 1959

Article. By Clyde Kennard. 1959.
Letter to the editor the Hattiesburg American about race and integration.

Tourgee Marker (photo) | Zinn Education Project

Students Secure Marker for Reconstruction Era Lawyer Albion Tourgée

Article. By Richard Dana.
A group of students at Kent State University-Ashtabula helped secure local recognition for Reconstruction era lawyer and writer Albion Tourgee, including a historical marker at his birthplace.

Jetnil Kiiner Student Mural (Art by Jocelyn Ng and Aravapo Leo) | Zinn Education Project

Climate Change, Gender, and Nuclear Bombs

Article. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools, Spring 2018.
Gender is one of the crucial variables determining how the climate crisis affects us.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Climate Change (Art by Michael Duffy) | Zinn Education Project

Teaching the Truth About Climate Change Is Up to Us, Because Textbooks Lie

Article. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools, Spring 2018.
Every single one of the texts adopted in Portland, known for being green and liberal, misleads young people about the climate crisis.

Students “Warrior Up” for Climate Justice

Article. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools, Fall 2018.
Teaching hope instead of despair, teachers invite students to research “climate warriors,” those who “know the truth” and yet are not defeated by it.

Tax the Rich (Art by Michael Duffy) | Zinn Education Project

Tax the Rich, Fight Climate Change

Article. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools, Winter 2018.
The “just transition” away from fossil fuels can also be a move toward a society that is cleaner, more equal, and more democratic.

Young person at climate justice protest (photo) | Zinn Education Project

Our House Is on Fire — Time to Teach Climate Justice

Article. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools, Spring 2019.
For too long, the fossil fuel industry has tried to buy teachers’ and students’ silence. But teaching climate justice has never been more urgent.

Teaching Social Activism in Prison | Zinn Education Project

Teaching Social Activism in Prison: The Leap Manifesto and Incarcerated Youth

Article. By Rachel Boccio. Rethinking Schools, Winter 2018.
A Connecticut educator who taught English to incarcerated young men for 20 years describes what happened when she introduced her students to the Canadian “Leap Manifesto.”

The Green New Deal and Our Schools

Article. By the Rethinking Schools Editorial Board. Rethinking Schools, Summer 2019.
The Green New Deal will only be brought to life by people who grasp the enormity of the crisis that humanity faces and the radical changes necessary to address it. This requires that we teach a climate justice curriculum.

Because Our Islands Are Our Life

Article. By Moé Yonamine. Rethinking Schools, Summer, 2019.
A high school ethnic studies teacher describes how students in the Pacific Island Club used poetry to refocus the narrative surrounding climate justice onto frontline communities.

Teaching Activity by Moé Yonamine