Together, we can starve the prison system.

Please join us in feeding NYC school spirit. 

Only one more day of our fundraising drive!








 

 

 

 

 

Our members say that Teachers Unite keeps them motivated to stay in the classroom.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is vital that we support them to continue.

 

 

 

 

 

Your donation or membership dues will:

 

* Ensure that 10 NYC schools hire Restorative Justice Coordinators through our Pilot School Campaign targeting the DOE

 

* Increase the number of TU workshops that train NYC educators to use and promote restorative practices

 

* Send our members to Washington DC to share their stories and support student testimony to get cops and guns out of U.S. schools

 

 

 

 

 

Together we can transform the popular idea of what it means to be a teacher. Please join us
 
 
 
 
 
 
Thank you for your support today!


What's Your Story?
 
Elana Eisen-Markowitz

School has always been a place where I am both most and least comfortable, and my experiences with schooling are what have shaped me most. 

 

I attended a number of very different public schools in and around a shifting Washington, D.C. in the 1980s and 90s. My days as a high school student in particular meant navigating the hallways and classrooms of an enormous public school in urban rim D.C., sometimes feeling like the best version of myself and too often feeling unrecognized, powerless and even unsafe. As a privileged, White, middle class, queer kid of college-educated parents in a very diverse and divided high school, my experiences were so different from day to day, hallway to hallway, class to class, activity to activity, that I consciously felt these experiences shaping who I was becoming and how I was learning to interact with various people and institutions. 

 

Elana and DSC-NY youth members on panel discussion led by journalist Soledad O'Brien 

 

In high school, I learned both explicitly and implicitly about power and privilege, and how to make choices within oppressive systems. I knew even then that I wanted to be involved in this kind of learning and choice-making with high schoolers into the future -- and hopefully with more consistent and thoughtful support than I experienced in my own schools. For better or worse, schools are often the places where people learn how to be. 

 

I am a high school teacher to pursue this goal of supportive, caring and rigorous schools that teach young people to be the best versions of themselves, through understanding the people and institutions around them. Just as I became who I am by learning to navigate high school, I want to be a part of young people shaping their worlds and their selves in this formative time -- whether or not their contexts and/or choices are the same as mine. 

 

Now, as a high school teacher in my 8th year, I know that in order to be involved in this shaping and guiding responsibly, I absolutely cannot and should not do it alone. 

 

Elana participating in a youth-led role play activity at ActionCamp, a training experience for community groups learning to run effective campaigns to dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline.  

 

Through Teachers Unite, I am working with other educators to create spaces that can help me be the best version of myself and give me the support to work with others do the same - whether or not their contexts and/or choices are the same as mine.

Teachers Unite helps me practically and philosophically connect the work I try to do in my classroom and school with larger movements for educational justice, and TU has shown me that when educators listen to and collaborate with other educators, with parents, and with our students, we will all have more energy and capacity to be effective at doing this difficult and necessary work.

 

Elana with colleagues, and TU members, Sarah and Fernando leading a restorative circle discussion at TU's Restorative Schools conference.

 

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Please donate to Teachers Unite today. 
Your generous donation to Teachers Unite sends a message of encouragement to educators who take 
action to end school pushout and racial injustice.

 

Our members are not only speaking out, they are acting out!

  • They help schools organize Restorative Justice Teams.

  • They collaborate with youth organizations to change the city's School Discipline Code.

  • They produce media and resources that envision a humanistic approach to student discipline.

  • They transform their own school cultures and advocate to the DOE and UFT for help with doing so.

We have to show parents and young people that teachers are opposed to social and economic injustice.  Please click here to donate today!