History

It was Black History Month. I was working with children and youth in an after-school program in the Clarksdale housing projects in Louisville, Ky. Spike Lee's film Malcolm X had just been released. I sat around a table with a group of teenagers discussing Alex Haley’s Autobiography of Malcolm X and James Cone’s Martin & Malcolm & America.

This activity is to accompany the Teaching Tolerance article "Civil Rights Road Trip."

This activity is to accompany the Teaching Tolerance article "Civil Rights Road Trip."

This activity is to accompany the Teaching Tolerance article "Give Bigotry No Sanction."

This lesson is the second in a series of lessons called “Issues of Poverty.” Students explore the causes of poverty in the United States and the structural factors that perpetuate it. Students will examine the ways poverty is closely related to economic and political policy, and will work to discover why it disproportionately affects members of non-dominant groups—that is, groups that have historically oppressed groups.

Walla Walla, Wash. is three plane flights, a few thousand miles and a climactic shift from Montgomery, Ala. As our recent report Teaching the Movement showed, there’s also a lot of distance between Washington’s sadly sketchy requirements for student learning about the civil rights movement and Alabama’s relatively ambitious standards.

This is the fifth and final lesson in a series called “Expanding Voting Rights.” The overall goal of the series is for students to explore the complicated history of voting rights in the United States.

This lesson is the fourth in a series called Expanding Voting Rights. The overall goal of the series is for students to explore the complicated history of voting rights in the United States. Two characteristics of that history stand out: First, in fits and starts, more and more Americans have gained the right to vote. Second, over time, the federal government's role in securing these rights has expanded considerably.

This lesson is the third in a series called Expanding Voting Rights. The overall goal of the series is for students to explore the complicated history of voting rights in this country. Two characteristics of that history stand out: First, in fits and starts, more and more Americans have gained the right to vote; and second, the federal government has played an increasing role over time in securing these rights.

Jeanette Winterson, author and poet, once said, “Books communicate ideas and make bridges between people.” As a middle school language arts teacher, I believed in this theory but wanted to see it in action. When I suggested to my principal that I would like to organize a book club with my students and local senior citizens, he was cautiously intrigued by the idea. 

Each year in my elementary art classroom, students learn about a diverse group of black men and women in honor of Black History Month (this activity, though, is relevant throughout the year).

In this lesson, students analyze a photograph of Mildred Jeter Loving and Richard Loving—the interracial couple that took the case of their marriage all the way to the Supreme Court—as a springboard for exploring the case, and for thinking about analogous issues today. This lesson is part of the Using Photographs to Teach Social Justice series.

In this lesson, students analyze a photograph from the freedom riders’ protest. This lesson is part of the Using Photographs to Teach Social Justice series.

Rose Mary Gilliam just wants to speak her peace and find enlightenment.

The 18-year-old New Orleans resident has been a volunteer in the public schools. She’s trained in non-violent protest. She talks with youngsters about making positive life choices. And this week, she’s joining a group of her peers in a reverse “freedom ride” to Washington, D.C., to join a national conversation and to protest inequities in education.  

The transition from middle school to ninth grade creates chaos for students. In eighth grade, students know their teachers and their classmates. They have a safe academic home.

Then comes high school.

It's not often that history teachers get to have a good laugh. But this week we enjoyed a rare moment of rolling-on-the-floor laughter.

You see, we're usually grim folks who favor "boring textbooks" and "monotonous lectures" in our quest to indoctrinate children with "filtered," "biased and politically correct" history.  At least, that's how Mike Huckabee sees us.