A national leader in the field of social and emotional learning (SEL), Morningside Center has developed a range of research-based programs that improve students’ social and emotional intelligence — and their academic performance. Through these programs:

• Students learn to resolve conflicts, stop bullying, handle anger, embrace diversity, and take leadership to improve their communities.
• Teachers receive professional development to help them teach students these skills and increase their effectiveness in the classroom.
• Principals, guidance counselors, other school staff, and parents learn strategies to help them make their school a safe, positive and productive learning environment.

Since 1982, they have helped children and adults learn these skills and improve their schools through programs including The 4Rs (Reading, Writing, Respect & Resolution) and Resolving Conflict Creatively.

Their work, once focused only in New York City public schools, has expanded to other school districts around the country. [Description from website.]

The post Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

This is a section of the overall Yo: Disabled and Proud website that aims to connect, organize, and educate youth with disabilities.

The post Youth Organizing! Disabled and Proud: Disability History Teaching Resources appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

Good resource for those teachers looking to incorporate disability history into their curricula or for organizers trying to demonstrate the need for a Disability History week in their school districts.

For more from the Museum of disAbility History visit the website: http://www.museumofdisability.org/

The post The Museum of disABILITY History appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

The list of award recipients is a great reference for teachers and students on whistleblowers and related books, films, and organizations. (Currently unavailable.)

About Ron Ridenhour

In 1969, Vietnam veteran Ron Ridenhour wrote a letter to Congress and the Pentagon describing the horrific events at My Lai – the infamous massacre of the Vietnam War – bringing the scandal to the attention of the American public and the world.

Ridenhour later became a respected investigative journalist, winning the George Polk Award for Investigative Journalism in 1987 for a year-long investigation of a New Orleans tax scandal. He died suddenly in 1998 at the age of 52. At the time of his death, he was working on a piece for the London Review of Books, had co-produced a story on militias for NBC’s Dateline and had just delivered a series of lectures commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of My Lai.

The post Ridenhour Prizes: Fostering the Spirit of Courage and Truth appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

Many of the events have a “peace button” link to additional information.

The website is also the source of peace symbol buttons. Each button comes with a card explaining the origin of the peace symbol:

“The first famous person to use the peace symbol was pacifist Bertrand Russell. The Committee for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) used it during a protest march in 1958 for nuclear disarmament in Aldermaston, England. Activist Gerald Holtom, who designed the symbol based it on the international semaphore alphabet. This system uses flag signals in place of letters like a code. The peace sign is actually the flag signals for N and D superimposed upon each other and it stands for Nuclear Disarmament. It has since become the international symbol for peace.” [Website description.]

The post This Week in History from Peace Buttons appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

It has become widely known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.”

The Right Livelihood Award is widely recognized as the world’s premier award for personal courage and social transformation. [Description from website.]

The website includes relevant news articles, archives on all award laureates, information on The Right Livelihood College, a description of The Right Livelihood Foundation, links to publications and media resources, and how to propose candidates and support the award.

Related Resources

Interviews with selected award winners from Democracy Now! Host Amy Goodman was the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award.

The post The Right Livelihood Award appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

The post 350.org appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

The Chinese Historical Society of America’s (CHSA) “Remembering 1882” project offers resources for educators on the Chinese Exclusion Act drawn from photographs, paper commentaries, political cartoons, and other objects as well as an exploration of the impacts and legacies of the Exclusion laws.

The CHSA host website, Civil Rights Suite: Exploring the History of the Chinese American Fight for Equality, offers two other microsites:

• “The Chinese of California” explores the complex history and unique challenges of Chinese Americans in their fight for civil rights.
• “To Enjoy and Defend Our American Citizenship” explores the experiences of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance in their groundbreaking work alongside groups such as the NAACP to challenge discriminatory laws and create the support systems necessary for survival in a segregated United States.

The post Remembering 1882: Fighting for Civil Rights in the Shadow of the Chinese Exclusion Act appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many endangered Gulf Coast communities felt their stories had been overlooked or misrepresented.

Bridge the Gulf uses storytelling to promote cultural survival, environmental justice, and sustainable development in Gulf Coast communities.

The website includes interactive story and data maps, a blog called Voices from the Gulf and a video archive called Stories from the Gulf. [Description from website.]

The post Bridge the Gulf appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

Free Speech Activist Mario Savio. Photo: Mindfully Green website.

Mario Savio, came to public notice as a spokesperson for the Free Speech Movement at the University of California in 1964. After spending the summer as a civil rights worker in Mississippi, Savio returned to Berkeley when students were beginning to mobilize in support of racial justice and against the deepening American involvement in Vietnam.

On Oct. 1, 1964 the Free Speech Movement was launched at UC-Berkeley when mathematics grad student Jack Weinberg was arrested for setting up a CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) information table in front of Sproul Hall, the administration building. Hundreds of students surrounded the police car holding Weinberg for 32 hours, making speeches from atop the car, and ultimately negotiating Weinberg’s release. The chancellor had been under pressure from the Board of Regents to ban expression of views considered communist. The students, inspired by the southern Civil Rights Movement, questioned the restrictions.

Savio led the non-violent campaign that inspired thousands of fellow Berkeley students to protest university regulations which severely limited political speech and activity on campus. The non-violent campaign culminated in the largest mass arrest in U.S. history, drew widespread faculty support, and resulted in a revision of university rules to permit political speech and organizing. This significant advance for student freedom rapidly spread to countless other colleges and universities across the country.

Later, Savio would speak and organize in favor of immigrant rights and affirmative action and against U.S. intervention in Central America.

Mario Savio died on November 6, 1996, in the middle of a struggle against university fee hikes that hurt working-class students.

Related Resource

Freedom’s Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the 1960s by Robert Cohen. Published by Oxford University Press.

The post Mario Savio: Memorial Lecture Fund appeared first on Zinn Education Project.