For thirty years, educators have turned to Teaching for Change to help students learn about history beyond the textbook heroes and holidays, rethink the world around them, and see themselves as agents of change. Educators continue to look to Teaching for Change in this unprecedented moment. They are adapting, and we are too — but we need your support. Learn more.

After ten amazing years, Allyson Criner Brown is leaving her role as Teaching for Change associate director and Tellin’ Stories program manager to embark on a new career at the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment. Allyson is one of the most creative, dedicated, visionary, hard working, and joyful people our team has worked with. She has made a positive and lasting impact on every aspect of the organization. Learn more.

October 24, 2020, 2pm – 3:15pm EST
For forty years, the respected community photographer and local activist Nancy Shia has lived in an apartment on the corner of Ontario Street and Columbia Road NW in Washington, D.C. During that time, she has taken countless photographs of the Columbia Heights, Adams Morgan, and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods. You are invited to a workshop to learn about the collection from the photographer and share ideas about how to include the photos in classes on D.C. history, U.S. history, civics, and more. Learn more & register.

On October 6, during Teach Central America Week, Teaching for Change and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Maryland, College Park hosted Salvadoran American journalist Roberto Lovato for a virtual book talk about his new book Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas. Over a hundred participants attended the event from… Learn more.

October 5-11, 2020
Teaching for Change is hosting the second annual Teach Central America Week from October 5 – 11, 2020. Hundreds of teachers from 29 states and the District of Columbia have signed up to participate and organizations have endorsed  the week. We have added several new resources for teaching about Central America to our website, including new books and teaching guides appropriate for use with elementary students. Read more.

Activist photographer Matt Herron died in a glider crash on August 7, 2020. At 89, Herron had lived his life to the fullest and had a generous spirit. Every time we asked for permission to use a photo, not only did he respond affirmatively, he also waived any fees as long as they were used for educational purposes. In fact, as recently as two days before the crash, we corresponded about a collection of photos of youth activists for our upcoming edition of Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching. Read more.

September 1, 2020, 5pm PST/8pm EST
Join a book celebration and conversation on Becoming a Teacher with author Melinda D. Anderson and LaQuisha Hall, moderated by Tiffany Mitchell Patterson on September 1, 2020, 5pm PST/8pm EST. The event is hosted by Teaching for Change on the day of the book release. Acclaimed education writer Melinda D. Anderson shadowed award winning Baltimore teacher Laquisha Hall for a year to shed light… Read more.

Teaching for Change, which launched SocialJusticeBooks.org in 2017 to identify and promote the best multicultural and social justice children’s books, launched a new video series, Freedom Reads: Anti-Bias Book Talk. Freedom Reads, a collection of short videos that give caregivers, parents, and educators the tools to evaluate children’s books using an anti-racist and anti-bias lens. Read more.

Good Morning America and PTO Today are among the latest news outlets to reach out to Teaching for Change for expertise on racism in public education. Read the articles for insights from Deborah Menkart on teaching Black history and anti-racism, and Allyson Criner Brown on racial equity in parent-teacher organizations.

More than 250 teachers from across the U.S. and other countries attended 2020 Indigenous Peoples’ Day Virtual Teach-In: Food and Water Justice, hosted by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and Teaching for Change on September 12, 2020. The focus of the teach-in was Indigenous peoples’ histories and experiences around food and water justice today. The teach-in began with a keynote address by Winona LaDuke about the importance of biodiversity. Read more.

Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? , was a special guest on the CNN Sesame Street Town Hall “Coming Together: Standing Up to Racism” on Saturday, June 6. Tatum (featured in part 2 at 6.55 minutes ) responded to a question from a parent about how to teach young children to be anti-racist in an age-appropriate way. Tatum said there are children’s books that can help young children understand and celebrate differences in skin color… Read more.

This year marks 150 years since the 15th Amendment promised: “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Following the Amendment’s adoption, white supremacists waged a campaign of disenfranchisement to destroy its impact. After decades of struggle, through legal action, civil disobedience, and mass politics, the 1965 Voting Rights Act… Learn more.

The 2018 Diversity in Children’s Literature graphic (produced by Sarah Park Dahlen and Mike Huyck) is now available as a full color postcard. Request copies from Teaching for Change to disseminate at workshops, conferences, and other public events.  Please donate so that we can disseminate cards everywhere. Read more.

Teaching for Change staff and board welcome our three interns for the summer of 2020: Shiloah Symone Coley (just graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison this spring with a Journalism Bachelor of Arts and minors in Studio Art and African American Studies); Kassandra “Kassie” Colón (just graduated from West Virginia University with a Bachelor of Arts in Latin American Studies, Women’s & Gender Studies, and Geography); and Daniela Shia-Sevilla (a rising senior at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, with a major in Latin American Studies). Read more.

While schools operate remotely in the midst of the pandemic, we remain committed to supporting the teaching of people’s history. Here is a collection of resource recommendations from the Zinn Education Project that we coordinate with Rethinking Schools. Read more.

Fridays have become a time to look forward to learning through stories about people’s history, to meeting other educators, and to finding a road map forward in the midst of this pandemic. As one participant said, “Thank you for getting us together and giving me hope that we are not alone, and that we can think and act ourselves out of this pandemic.” The Zinn Education Project staff, in collaboration with Jeanne Theoharis, have scheduled more sessions for May and June. Read about sessions to date and sign up for upcoming ones.

D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice, Communities for Just Schools Fund, and the Early Childhood Initiative at the National Museum of African American History and Culture offered a workshop on hair representation in children’s books on November 2, 2019. Read more.

Bright smiles, children waving, and parents checking on each other was the introduction to this virtual parent meeting held on April 7, 2020. Principal Nikeysha Jackson and her team recreated a virtual version of our signature Parent-Principal Chat activity as a way for West Education Campus (DCPS) school staff and teachers to check in with one another amidst COVID-19 and the new distant learning practices that has swept schools. Parent-Principal Chats are always a team effort at West. Several administrators… Learn more.

In a rejection of the term “social distancing,” our colleague, Kwesi Rollins, of the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL), recently stated that while we may have to be physically distant during this challenging time, it doesn’t mean we can’t and shouldn’t remain socially connected.  Teaching for Change staff and social justice-minded educators across borders are also mindful that this is not a time to abandon equity as a guiding principle or strategy in our efforts to support students and families. Learn more.

2020 is both an election year and the 150th anniversary of the passage of the 15th Amendment, making it an important time to invite our students to consider the history of voting rights in the United States. The struggle for the ballot is emblematic of the struggle to make real the democratic promises of this country’s founding narrative. Just as the United States has never been a true “government by the people, for the people,” the right to vote has always been incomplete, contested, and compromised by the racism… Learn more.