|
The right-wing attacks on racial justice teaching have become more shrill, more frightening.
The right accuses us of “political indoctrination,” but they are the ones who seek to indoctrinate with a white-washed, textbook-only narrative.
What the right wing seeks to block are student experiences like the ones illustrated in three teaching stories we received this month.
Judge for yourself: “indoctrination” or an exploration of U.S. history that helps students think for themselves and shape a more just future?
| |
Students Create People’s History Site Commemorations | |
In lieu of a traditional midterm exam for one of my U.S. History I classes, I had students complete the Zinn Education Project activity “How We Remember” based on Clint Smith’s How the Word Is Passed. Here is one of their projects: | |
The students assigned Angola created a script for a guided tour. They included images and provided visuals to go along with the script. The brutal facts of Angola as a plantation and as a prison were presented. In the end, “visitors” were encouraged to sign a petition to close Angola. The plan was to make it a museum that focuses on the history of Black Americans’ struggles both during and after enslavement. | | |
All the commemorations were thoughtful and the students did an incredible job, doing justice to the history at those locations. — Allyson Saladino, High School Social Studies Teacher, Ridgewood, New Jersey | |
People’s History Lesson to Accompany Kindred
| |
|
This year, my 11th-grade English class is reading Kindred by Octavia E. Butler. The book immerses the reader in the terrors of the Antebellum South. But it doesn’t wallow in violence and fear. Butler offered readers visions of education and resistance.
As I worked through the novel with my students, I knew it was important to highlight the power and possibility envisioned by those enslaved and to not only focus on the pain and the trauma. The “Poetry of Defiance: How the Enslaved Resisted” lesson by Adam Sanchez was the perfect vehicle. — Nick DePascal, High School English Teacher, Albuquerque, New Mexico
| |
|
African Americans During WWII | |
|
High school history teacher Amanda Sandoval was one of hundreds of educators who received copies of Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad from the author Matthew Delmont and the Zinn Education Project.
Delmont’s book asks readers to rethink what they know about the war by centering Black protagonists. He writes, “Nearly everything about the war — the start and end dates, geography, vital military roles, the home front, and international implications — looks different when viewed from the African American perspective.”
Sandoval had her students create blackout poems with the books’ introduction, making evident the power of the text.
| |
|
In the face of growing attacks on the teaching of history, The New Press has partnered with the Zinn Education Project to send books to teachers and teacher educators in Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.
We offer these books, donated by The New Press, in solidarity with teachers who insist on their students’ right to study history and contemporary issues. The right wing seeks to indoctrinate students with a whitewashed narrative of history. Our goal is for young people to engage in intellectual inquiry, to pursue real questions about history, and to apply historical insights to contemporary issues.
| |
Florida educators and teacher educators are horrified by the attacks on African American history and anti-racist education. In solidarity, Rethinking Schools is sending copies of Teaching for Black Lives to Florida classroom teachers who request them. | |
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks
| |
The biography by Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, is available in a young readers’ edition and as documentary film. The book and film depict Rosa Parks’ life-long dedication to justice. The Zinn Education Project is offering teachers and teacher educators free copies of the book and a free license to stream the film in classes through March 31, 2023. | |
Teaching for Black Lives
Study Group Spotlight
| |
|
Since 2020, the Zinn Education Project has hosted hundreds of Teaching for Black Lives Study Groups. Teachers study how to teach for Black lives and gain the collective strength to face right wing attacks. There is power in numbers.
We periodically spotlight Teaching for Black Lives groups for you to meet. Here is Paterson, New Jersey.
| |
|
The recurring theme of the impact of systemic racism has dominated our discussions. We have spoken about our experiences in school as students, our lives in segregated neighborhoods, and our interactions with medical personnel.
We have appreciated the opportunity to have a safe space to work through the challenges and obstacles faced by some of us — and by most of our students.
As Bryan Stevenson so aptly puts it, our history has been compromised by this false narrative of racial hierarchy, and our work exploring and applying the lessons of Teaching for Black Lives represents our efforts to change that narrative — even if it is only on a small scale.
| | |
Teachers are under attack for teaching truthfully about U.S. history. Please donate so that we can continue to offer free people’s history lessons and resources, and defend teachers’ right to use them. | | | | |
