Teacher-Led Study Groups

Professional Learning and Mutual Support

In a time of censorship and political repression, teacher-led study groups are building communities of resistance and hope.

Each participant in the Zinn Education Project study groups receives a copy of Rethinking Schools’ Teaching for Black Lives, a subscription to Rethinking Schools magazine, a year-long menu of workshops and seminars to choose from, and access to a national network of social justice educators.

Why should you form a Teaching for Black Lives study group?

If you are feeling hopeless about the state of censorship and politics in this country, the Teaching for Black Lives study group gives you tangible actions and supportive spaces to teach truth to the next generation. — Jenna Arnold, high school social studies teacher, Gresham, Oregon

Our Teaching for Black Lives study group has been life/teacher changing for me. There isn’t a clinic/workshop/seminar that could have even come close to the impact I’ve received here. — Tara Micham, high school social studies teacher, Kansas City, Kansas

Indivisible organized nationwide #HandsOff and #NoKings this spring. Now they encourage everyone to form local groups, including teachers. They note in their training,

In an imperiled democracy, individuals are powerless but groups are not. Fascists depend on you believing you’re alone and powerless.

Don’t go into the new school year alone. Sign up to host a study group.

Learn More and Apply

Sneak Preview

Look Who’s Teaching Class This Year

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This is such a wonderful series — content-wise and soul-feeding.

This is one of the best professional developments I have ever been to, hands-down. I am so grateful. This series gives me hope in this difficult time.

We hear comments like these every month from educators who attend our Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online classes with people’s historians. These classes offer the chance to learn directly from leading historians and to meet peers from across the country.

Join us for classes on How the Word Is Passed: Remembering Slavery and How It Shaped America; Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back; and more.

Class Schedule

Hands Off Our Students

Summer Issue of Rethinking Schools

The summer issue of Rethinking Schools helps educators understand the rising authoritarianism and what social justice educators can do about it.

In addition, high school teacher Nataliya Braginsky writes about building the school-to-abolition pipeline; educators Kushya Sugarman and Laura Taylor share survey results on the Teaching for Black Lives study groups; high school science teacher Amy Polzin describes a lesson to help students explore who — or what — is to blame for the rise of epidemics related to increased sugar consumption; and much more.

Read and Subscribe

Classes and Conferences

Check out these events hosted by the Zinn Education Project and our colleagues.

DCAESJ Social Justice Curriculum Fair in person, August 23, Washington, D.C.

How the Word Is Passed: Remembering Slavery and How It Shaped America with Clint Smith, August 25

Native Knowledge 360° Teach-In in person, September 20, New York City

Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism with Eve L. Ewing, September 22

18th Annual Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference in person, October 18, Portland, Oregon

King of the North : Part Two with Jeanne Theoharis, October 27

Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back with Joshua Clark Davis, November 10

105th National Council for the Social Studies Conference in person, December 5–7, Washington, D.C.

Black History Is for Everyone with Brian Jones, January 26

More Events

We Need Your Help

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.

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