Imagine a world rooted in justice. What would it look like? Zo Clement, special education teacher at Two Rivers Charter School in Washington, D.C., set out to answer this question with middle school students over the summer.

“How many Central Americans can you name?” an 8th-grade teacher at Hardy Middle School in Washington, D.C. asked her advisory. During Teach Central America Week, the teacher used the remote learning Central America mixer template to explore the lives and experiences of Central American figures with students.

Teaching for Change was pleased to partner with Filmfest DC in October of 2020 for the ninth year to bring filmmakers to DC classrooms. Through this partnership, students and educators gained access to the 34th Washington, D.C. International Film Festival documentaries to view at home, and ten classes hosted filmmakers, including two films in the Justice Matters series. Here are descriptions of the virtual classroom visits.

Teaching for Change hosted the second annual Teach Central America Week from October 5 – 11, 2020. Hundreds of teachers from 35 states and the District of Columbia signed up to participate and organizations across the country endorsed the week. If you haven’t already, we encourage you to sign up to pledge to Teach Central America and share your stories about how you teach about Central America all year long. Here, we share news about lessons, events, teaching stories, and resources from this year’s Teach Central America Week.

On Friday October 9, eighty high schoolers from Capital City Public Charter School in Washington D.C. joined a Zoom call with Claudia Sparrow, director and producer of the film Maxima. Maxima follows Máxima Acuña, a Peruvian activist fighting a multinational gold mining corporation over rights to her land.

During the 2020 election season, D.C. educators Lia Bengtson and Tarja Lewis, along with a few of their colleagues, planned to conduct a mock election at their school. Lia wrote, “It grew way beyond our expectations. We ended up having 34 schools in 23 states and the District of Columbia participate.”

As schools across the country moved to emergency remote learning, Erin Coppola-Klein, 7th- and 8th- grade advisor and social studies teacher at Capitol Hill Day School, wanted to continue to provide interactive and engaging lessons for students. Coppola-Klein used the U.S. Mexico War lesson in the form of a mixer by Bill Bigelow with 22 7th- grade students.

When the pandemic closed the doors of global studies teacher Gregory Landrigan’s middle school classroom at Sacred Heart School in D.C., he decided to shelve the lessons he’d planned for the rest of the year. “What do you want to learn?” he asked the students. “What matters to you most?” With the answers to these questions, he invited students to explore a topic of interest to them through an independent study.

U.S. history high school teacher Jessica Rucker at E.L. Haynes shares a lesson she has used with her students during the pandemic for their asynchronous learning.

Here is a growing list of D.C. metro area teaching stories from during this time of emergency online learning due to COVID-19.

The second series of the D.C. Educators for Equity book club began in early January of this year. Classroom educators, librarians, media specialists, and school coordinators gathered at Tubman Elementary (DCPS) school to explore Cornelius Minor’s We Got This: Equity, Access, and the Quest To Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be.

Ms. Corliss, a special education teacher at Jefferson Middle School Academy (DCPS), led a Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action lesson aligned to the guiding principle, “Black Women.”

Students are leading the charge in combating this climate crisis, with groups like Zero Hour and U.S. Youth Climate Strike standing up for their futures and advocating for changes in climate policy. But what about our youngest learners? How can we encourage young children to become the future leaders in the fight for climate justice?

In Spanish 1 at Thurgood Marshall Academy, students learned about several Afrolatinos during the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action.

After exploring their connection to the Black Lives Matter movement in previous activities, my 11th and 12th grade students at Thurgood Marshall Academy worked through the #LastWords lesson.

Go-go artist “Sweet” Cherie Mitchell visited Langdon Elementary School in connection with Teaching for Change’s Teach the Beat program. This is the second year that the program has been able to visit Langdon, a partner in Teaching for Change’s Tellin Stories parent engagement project. At the January parent-principal meeting, parents participated in an icebreaker where they were asked to consider: what does go-go music mean to you?

Watkins Elementary School 4th grade teacher Monique Sullivan used Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence as a way to explore who is centered in history and what stories are left out.

Second graders in Katie Soffer and Kina Gee’s classroom at Inspired Teaching Demonstration PCS learned about activism as part of the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action.

In “crews” of four to five, students each picked up an instrument from Ju Ju’s percussion section of cowbells and several types of drums. Then as a whole class, with drumsticks in each hand, Ju Ju taught the students to tap out a go-go “pocket beat” and a “bounce beat” that is popular among younger go-go performers and listeners.

Go-go musician Sweet Cherie, keyboardist and singer for the all-female Bela Dona Band, joined the music class at Anacostia HS as part of the 2020 Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. A highlight of the visit was when Sweet Cherie led the room in Junkyard Band’s go-go classic, “Sardines.” One of the drummers joined her in the circle and midway through the song added a bounce beat to the rhythm.