The news, the news, the news… it hit us all summer. And like most teachers, even when we are taking our time away from school, we think about how things will work or impact our kids—and in happy ingenious moments, maybe a great lesson plan idea. As my co-teacher and I prepared to meet our third grade class, we thought about how to approach all our wonderful young people at... Read more >>

Approximately 20 teachers (and ASL interpreters) from across the D.C. metro area met at the Teaching for Change office on Saturday, September 9 to share teaching and activism strategies in response to the repeal of DACA. The event was organized by the new network, D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice, and facilitated by Faye Colon. The convening began with participants using a tool to explore their personal connections to DACA to meet each other. Read more >>

National History Day projects are a wonderful opportunity for middle and high school students to research and learn about topics and individuals outside the typical textbook. We share here the experiences of D.C. eighth grade middle school teacher Beth Kara. Her students’ completed projects on Queen Liliuokalani, Sophie Scholl and the White Rose, Assata Shakur, Muhammad Ali, and many more people of note who stood fought for social justice. Read more >>

Third-grade teacher Andy Grayson wrote to tell us that he was thrilled to share Wilfredo: Un niño de El Salvador/A Boy from El Salvador with his students. He learned about the free downloadable book in a Teaching for Change workshop sponsored by the Alexandria City Public Schools. Here is what Grayson told us about why Wilfredo is so useful: After reading Wilfredo, I observed increased discourse and engagement from a wider range of students. Students whose families have... Read more >>

When fifth grade Spanish literacy teacher Cesarina Pierre realized that her nearly two decades of teaching Caribbean students in New York City Public Schools would not fully translate to teaching Central American students in Washington D.C., she sought resources from Teaching for Change. Pierre asked Teaching for Change, a longtime partner at the school, to help her understand the unique experiences of Central American families. Read more >>

The theme was “Feed Your Brain: Nourish Your Community” and the session topics included: Food Sourcing, Food Policy and Laws, Food Production, Food Waste and Composting, School Lunches, and Food Access.

Stapert became inspired to incorporate the curriculum from A People’s Curriculum for the Earth: Teaching Climate Change and the Environmental Crisis into Lowell’s academic program.

At the February convening of the Stories from Our Classrooms writing course, teacher alumni Ellen Royse and Amy Rothschild and current participant Shayna Tivona shared how they used their teacher voices on behalf of democracy. Earlier this month, our friends and family across the country had trouble reaching their Senators to express their views on Betsy DeVos’s nomination for Secretary of Education. Those of us living in D.C. don’t have voting senators, but we do have proximity. Read more >>

The Deputy Mayor for Education responded to our proposal for sanctuary schools in D.C. Teaching for Change staff and our allies agreed the response was inadequate. We acknowledged the response and will continue to discuss next steps with immigrant-led groups, students, educators, families, and advocates for sanctuary policies across the District. Read more >>

Teaching for Change partnered with Filmfest DC: The Washington, DC International Film Festival for a sixth year to spread the word about the international film festival and to bring filmmakers for several films into D.C. classrooms in April.Students gain a lot from viewing the documentaries, preparing questions, and discussing the film with the visitors. (Read about prior year visits.) Read more >>

My daughter asked if we had papers and if we would be kicked out of the country. My kids say they will leave with me when we talked about the election. They said, “That man is a bad man because he doesn’t like Hispanics.” [The election results] make me feel unsafe in this country, because of [Trump’s] comments. I feel rejected, and like all of the advancements and contributions, we as Hispanic... Read more >>

On Sunday, October 16, 2016, twenty D.C. area teachers gathered for the first session of Stories from our Classrooms 2016-2017, an annual course offered by Teaching for Change. The goals for this course are for teacher participants to deepen their own practice, build community among D.C. area social justice educators, and to contribute to the all-too-scarce collection of published descriptions of classroom practice by teachers themselves. Read more >>

On June 12, 2016, Teaching for Change celebrated the work of the teachers from our inaugural Stories from Our Classrooms social justice teacher writing group. Every month on a Sunday, social justice teacher writers came together to write, reflect, and share. The event opened with teachers each reading one of the lines below to highlight what they did and why. Read more >>

This spring my sixth and seventh grade reading students at Gunston Middle School in Arlington, Virginia researched the lack of diversity in children’s and young adult books. After learning about the statistics on diversity in books and the “We Need Diverse Books” and #StepUpScholastic campaigns, students did surveys of our classroom library and a selection of sports books to see which groups of people were under-represented.I started the sports books lesson by asking them... Read more >>

For two months in the spring of 2016, Teaching for Change staff member Julian Hipkins III taught a class in D.C. history at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. The strategies and resources he used for teaching from a bottom-up perspective, described below, could be of use for other teachers of D.C. history. In addition to drawing on archives, key people, and historic sites, his core text was City of Magnificent Intentions by Keith Melder. Read more >>

On this fifth year of Teaching for Change’s partnership with Filmfest DC: The Washington, DC International Film Festival, we brought five of the films to D.C. classrooms in April of 2016. Here are brief descriptions of the films and the filmmakers’ school visits. Read more >>

Teaching for Change was pleased to attend and photograph the 2016 Food Justice Youth Summit. See our posts about 2014 and 2015, and view more photographs from 2016 in our Flickr album. On April 7, 2016, 11th graders at Capital City Public Charter School hosted the 2nd Annual Food Justice Youth Summit to build awareness about food justice issues, both nationally and locally, at Friends Meeting House of Washington. This year’s event featured keynote speaker, Lauren Nixon... Read more >>

In the 2014-2015 school year, Brian Juarez* was a second grader at Thomson Elementary (DCPS), a fourth-year Tellin’ Stories partner school. He spoke Spanish at home and had already become the interpreter between his parents and his teachers. When there were forms to send home, he filled them out during class with his teacher’s help. Emily Prater, his second grade teacher noted... Read more >>

World famous after her visit to the White House for the 2016 Black History Month reception, Ms. Virginia McLaurin spoke with D.C. history classes at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School on March 16, 2016. McLaurin was born in South Carolina and came to D.C. during the Great Migration. Media outlets from all over the world have interviewed McLaurin about what it was like to meet the the Obamas. Read more >>

Our 11th-grade FOOD JUSTICE EXPEDITION is an interdisciplinary three-part study (past, present, and future) of the impact of food on our community–both locally and globally. The expedition begins with an exploration of our students’ families’ cultural connections to foods; as 99% of our students come from African American and immigrant families, we discuss the significant role of food in dictating cultural identity. Read more >>