Articles Archives - Page 5 of 5 - Zinn Education Project

On September 20th, If Our Students are Not in the Streets, Let’s Bring the Streets to Our Students

Article. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Rethinking Schools Blog, September 2019.
A call to action for teachers to join students, whether in the streets or in classrooms, by using their voices for climate justice.

Teaching Activity by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

Gaby Lemieux testifying before the school board.

Teachers vs. Climate Change: The Story of Teachers’ Work for Climate Justice in Portland, Oregon

Article. By Bill Bigelow.
The story of how teachers, parents, and students in Portland, Oregon organized to demand that climate change be taught honestly and to pass a climate justice resolution.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Teach Voting Rights

Voting rights toolkit for students.

What Our Students Should Know About the Struggle for the Ballot — but Won’t Learn from Their Textbooks

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

From voter ID laws to voter-roll purges, gerrymandering to poll closures to the deadly in-person voting conditions during a pandemic, the right to vote is under attack and the stakes are high. It is critical that students learn about the fight for voting rights, past and present.

How History Got the Rosa Parks Story Wrong

Article. By Jeanne Theoharis. The Washington Post. 2015.
The radical life history of Rosa Parks, before and after the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Rosa Parks Highlander School | Zinn Education Project

Resources for Teaching Outside the Textbook About Rosa Parks

Lessons, books, digital collections, films, key people, events, and more for teaching about Rosa Parks beyond the textbook.

Two Thumbs Up: Movies and Documentaries to Use (and Avoid) When Teaching Civil Rights

Article from "Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement" edited by Hasan Kwame Jeffries.
A critical review of films on the Civil Rights Movement and institutionalized racism, with dozens of recommendations of films to watch and those to avoid.

The United States Is Not a Democracy. Stop Telling Students That It Is.

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

When our students only learn about this exceptionally strange system, the electoral college, from their corporate-produced history and government textbooks, they have no clue why this is how we choose our president. More importantly, they develop a stunted sense of their own power — and little reason to believe they might have the potential to create something better.

More than McCarthyism: The Attack on Activism Students Don’t Learn About from Their Textbooks

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

In legislatures across the country, Republican lawmakers are introducing bills to curtail what educators — in public schools and universities — can say and teach about racism and sexism. This latest moral panic from the Right comes on the heels of recent legislation dangerously curtailing the rights of transgender people — especially young people — and enacting another round of voter suppression. It is paramount that we organize to defeat these threats to the health and safety of LGBTQ people, voting rights, and the freedom of educators to tell the truth. It is also worth reminding ourselves — and our students — of other times in U.S. history when powerful politicians manufactured threats and whipped up fear to neutralize progressive challenges to the status quo — the McCarthy Era being a well-known high-water mark of state repression.

Textbook Myths About President Woodrow Wilson

Article. By James W. Loewen.
Excerpt about President Woodrow Wilson from "Lies My Teacher Told Me" (The New Press).

drawing of a protester being erased from a chalkboard.

The Attack on Anti-Racist Teaching Attacks Environmental Justice Teaching

The right-wing legislation restricting lessons on history and systemic racism also denies students climate literacy.

The Climate Crisis Has a History. Teach It.

Article. By Mimi Eisen and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 2023.
A rationale for a new timeline of the climate crisis.

The Day of Silence: Queer Kids, Conservative Kids, and the Silences Within and Between Them

Article. By Anna McMaken-Marsh. Rethinking Schools. 2022.
A high school teacher navigates the tensions that arise in conversations with students about the Day of Silence, and how to bridge divides.

Expanding Intersectional Queer History in the Elementary Grades

Article. By Laura Shelton. Rethinking Schools. 2022.
A 5th- and 6th-grade teacher asks her students to wrestle with what “identity” and “intersectionality” mean.

The Overthrow of Democracy in Chile — A Timeline

Article. Timeline by Bill Bigelow. 2023.
A timeline of the overthrow of democracy in Chile — the fall of Salvador Allende and the rise of Augusto Pinochet.

Discussion Questions for “A People’s History of the United States”

Questions and selected activities to accompany A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction

Article. By Ana Rosado, Gideon Cohn-Postar, and Mimi Eisen. 2022. 44 pages.
The report includes assessments of education standards in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, along with findings and recommendations for how to improve instruction on Reconstruction.