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Coordinated by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.
Question the President
The powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned. — Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff
We need to remind students that this country has been at its best when people organized to question and challenge presidents — opposing presidential support for slavery, war, invasion, environmental destruction, segregation, mass deportations, and injustice of all kinds. Our students need stories of this resistance to inform and inspire their own activism.
As we approach Presidents’ Day, students are witnessing the three branches of government collapsing into one. It’s time to help students think critically about the presidency — and to question and challenge authoritarian rule.
Teaching about Reconstruction and the Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th) sheds light on current events. For example, this administration is attacking birthright citizenship, as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Students can learn that the 14th Amendment turned the Constitution into a document for equality. It is no wonder that the Trump administration is laser-focused on weakening it.
With your support, we can bring these lessons to classrooms everywhere.
Last month, the federal government tore down a National Park Service exhibit about the people enslaved by George Washington at his Philadelphia residence in the shadow of Independence Hall.
The panels removed from the President’s House Site told the stories of Austin, Christopher Sheels, Giles, Hercules, Joe Richardson, Moll, Oney Judge (in image), Paris, and Richmond — all held in bondage years after the Founders claimed for themselves the “unalienable rights” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
(2)Teach the history that was removed from the exhibit in Philadelphia using classroom friendly zines created to share the history from the President’s House Site.
(3)Display the removed images in schools and communities everywhere.
While the Seattle Seahawks just won the Superbowl, they have also been champions for educators. After the racial justice uprising of 2020, the Seahawks coach at the time (Pete Carroll, with his wife Glenna), a number of players, and Seahawks Players Equality & Justice for All Action Fund provided the core funding for the Zinn Education Project to launch Teaching for Black Lives study groups.
To date we have hosted 450 study groups (including one in Puerto Rico). We need your support to continue.
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (Bad Bunny) demonstrated the role of artists who teach outside the textbook. Send us stories about how you use the extraordinary half-time show to teach about colonialism, slavery, 1898, Puerto Rican culture, Afro-Latino and Indigenous identity, the climate crisis, energy injustice, language, solidarity, joy, the Americas, resistance, and much more.
Add these events, hosted by the Zinn Education Project and our colleagues, to your calendar. Online unless noted otherwise.
On Monday, February 23, at 7pm ET, Jesse Hagopian will facilitate a curriculum workshop on “Legalize Black Education,” a Zinn Education Project lesson that explores examples of laws that suppress Black education in the wake of major victories for the Black Freedom Struggle, highlighting the historical context and motivations behind these legislative efforts. There will be time to meet other social justice educators in small groups to brainstorm ways to adapt the lesson for your classroom.
Join Rethinking Schools on March 12 at 7pm ET for a discussion and celebration of I Didn’t Come Here to Lie: My Life and Education, the memoir of Karen Lewis, the brilliant former president of the Chicago Teachers Union. The webinar will feature Rethinking Schools’ executive director Cierra Kaler-Jones and editor Jesse Hagopian in conversation with historian Elizabeth Todd-Breland. The conversation will also explore the power of teacher unions in fighting fascism.
The annualNative Knowledge 360° Teach-In, hosted by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in collaboration with Teaching for Change on March 14, is an online opportunity for educators to access classroom resources from NMAI’s Native Knowledge 360° education portal, the Zinn Education Project, and more.
Join us this summer for a virtual Teaching for Black Lives study group. Each participant will receive a Teaching for Black Lives book and a one-year subscription to the Rethinking Schools magazine.
Pre-K–12 educators will explore how to teach about racism, resistance, and joy. We will meet at 4 pm PT/ 7 pm ET on Tuesdays: June 23, June 30, July 14, and July 21.
Teachers are under attack for teaching truthfully about U.S. history. Please donate so we can continue to offer free people’s history lessons and resources, and defend teachers’ right to use them.
