People's History Curriculum Group
D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice has a working group for D.C. area middle and high school teachers who are committed to teaching with a people's history lens.
The DC Area Educators for Social Justice Middle and High School People’s History Curriculum Working Group meets monthly. Participants share their work for feedback and write about their practice, ideally for publication. In November and December of 2020, the group collectively wrote the following statement of purpose:
Create places of teaching and dialogue for the purpose of exposing the roots of oppression in order to transcend and abolish them
Challenge the stories and celebrations that are told in society to create a more just and humanizing education system, with liberatory curriculum design, for our community
Empower students to realize and utilize the power they already possess
Engage in revolutionary, abolitionist praxis in schools
Foster brave and restorative spaces for collective organization and communal care.
The group was selected as one of the Zinn Education Project Teaching for Black Lives Study Groups for 2021. As a result, participants (after two meetings) receive a copy of the book Teaching for Black Lives, a subscription to the Rethinking Schools magazine, and invitations to special events for study group members from across the United States.
The group has continued to meet via Zoom during the pandemic. We engage in a collective activity (writing a poem or a game) at the opening and then break into small groups to discuss lessons that participants are writing and/or teaching. Fill out the application if you are interested in joining the group.
The group is coordinated by Teaching for Change staff and a teacher leader who helps shape the agenda, facilitate the sessions, and engage participants in writing and/or presenting. For the founding year and a half, DCPS middle school teacher Caneisha Mills was the teacher co-coordinator. In addition, Mills had a lesson published at the Zinn Education Project website and in Rethinking Schools. The lesson, which she had shared with the group for feedback as she was writing it, is Who’s to Blame? A People’s Tribunal on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Background and Sessions
The first meeting of the people’s history curriculum working group was held on October 5, 2019, with a presentation by high school teacher and Rethinking Schools editor Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Wolfe-Rocca led the group in a 45-minute climate justice lesson and described five approaches to writing curriculum. The group then met in sub-groups: one on teaching about climate justice and the other on teaching about challenging myths about U.S. Presidents. Each participant received a copy of the Rethinking Schools book, A People’s Curriculum for the Earth.
A number of subsequent sessions are described below, starting with the most recent session and working back.
October 26, 2024
Twelve teachers from the DCAESJ elementary and secondary working groups gathered at the Teaching for Change office. Co-facilitated by teacher leaders Mollie Safran and Raphael Bonhomme, the gathering covered complex topics of race, identity, and stereotypes in art, offering new perspectives on how to foster an inclusive classroom environment through a thought-provoking workshop led by Diamond Gray of the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. Read more.
May 13, 2024
The May working group meeting was held at the Teaching for Change office, and it was a reflective time for educators across all three groups to connect over a collaborative art project. Mollie guided the first activity, directing participants to reflect on the year and color a cherry blossom image in a way that represented how the year went based on the working group and/or their educational institutions’ experiences. This reflection laid the foundation for the second activity —dreaming into next school year (and beyond).
Members thought both concretely and abstractly about what they wanted out of the working groups and wrote their thoughts down on Post-Its, organized by theme. For example, justice and field trips were just a few of the widely agreed upon features working group members wanted to continue. Participants then collaborated on a collage that illustrated the themes. This collaborative activity will be an annual, end-of-year approach to reflection on their work.
April 13, 2024
The April elementary and secondary working group meeting centered on a problem of practice that was raised by a working group member: how to find strategies for teaching about Black history that recognize both resistance and joy. Additionally, how to find ways to involve caregivers in that learning.
Raphael shared an anecdote about his school and how there was an attempt at hosting a schoolwide Black joy/celebratory theme to Black history, but insufficient recognition of the horrors faced, as well. He shared an image of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympics and attendees discussed what joy was present and what uncomfortable conversations would generate from the same image. As a group, members added their definitions of Black joy, and topics in Black history that may lead to uncomfortable conversations, to a Jamboard.
They watched and briefly discussed videos about a Lego artist and stolen artifacts at the British Museum. Raphael shared about the PBLs his third and fourth graders did that were inspired by their learning around the Benin statues and the Lego artist. See images from the 3rd grade and 4th grade PBLs. The meeting wrapped with a 15 minute collaboration about teaching both resistance and joy about Black LGBTQ+ history.
March 16, 2024
All three working groups met at the Phillips Collection for the March meeting. They kicked it off with group trivia, composed by the education team at the museum. It drew from Bonnard’s Worlds, the special exhibit open from March 2nd - June 2nd, 2024, and from the Museum’s Story, a standard resource to learn more about the collection’s history. Tiffane White, a museum educator at the Collection, facilitated an interactive tour of the museum’s permanent collection and Bonnard’s Worlds. The tour, entitled “Taking a Stand, Making a Change,” is designed to analyze and critique fine art collections, broaden the narrative, and develop strategies for educators to pair art and documents in their classroom teaching.
See all photos from the meeting at the Phillips Collection.
February 10, 2024
For the February working group meeting, the DCAESJ elementary and secondary groups met via Zoom. The topic was on community museums and their role in education. The meeting kicked off with an icebreaker where members introduced themselves and shared a memory they had of museums. Their reflections varied from museums being something they rarely got to experience, usually through a school field trip, to others who frequented museums and found them rather accessible. From there, working group members added their thoughts to a Jamboard with the following questions:
What features do you think of when you think of a museum?
What features do you think of when you think of a community museum?
What is important to consider or do when designing a community museum?
How might you use the concept of a community museum in your educational setting?
Mollie and Raphael also shared the Community Museum Choice Board for elementary and secondary educators to use with their students.
December 9, 2023:
The elementary and secondary working groups met online for their December meeting. Sela Gebrechirstos, the Youth & Community Outreach Coordinator at Black Swan Academy (BSA), facilitated an abbreviated version of BSA’s Organizing to Lead workshop, designed for adults. After going around the Zoom room and introducing ourselves and what activist animal we considered ourselves to be — an activity first introduced to the group at the Anacostia Community Museum — we dove into the workshop. After some grounding on BSA’s work, educators engaged in an activity where they identified where they fall on a spectrum of adults that support young people in social justice work and reflected on where they want to be. They then participated in a virtual scavenger hunt through the Black Youth Agenda. Working group members were impressed by the fliers BSA youth composed. They noted how disheartening it is that so many of the issues that school-aged youth are experiencing now, including unkempt facilities and increased policing in schools which make students feel unsafe, are issues that have been around for decades. With their remaining time, educators drafted elevator pitches to deliver to youth encouraging them to get active in social justice.
Resources from the meeting:
The Black Youth Agenda Flyers again for folks who want to print them out and share with their youth.
One working group member shared:
I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have gained through this partnership with DCAESJ and Black Swan Academy.
November 18, 2023:
The group met at the Anacostia Community Museum on Saturday, November 18th. They began with some grounding by Andrea Jones, Associate Director of Education at the museum. Jones talked about what environmental justice means to the museum and how they’re guided by the idea that environmental justice is “Not just about saving the earth; it’s about saving the people.” Working group members shared some of the lessons they’ve designed or done with students that insist on racial justice to achieve environmental justice. They then toured the To Live and Breathe: Women and Environmental Justice in Washington, D.C. exhibit, which included an activity that helps people understand what kind of activist they are. Folks had time to view the exhibit before meeting in the museum’s program room for trivia and collaboration.
One working group member shared:
Thank you for another great session! This one left me feeling very inspired and sparked a lot of thinking.
Here’s a PDF of the Utopia Project Dreambook Andrea Jones gave everyone.
September 23, 2023:
The DCAESJ elementary and secondary working groups’ first meeting for the 2023 - 2024 school year was moving and thought provoking. They met at the Smithsonian American History Museum and were in conversation with Dr. Katherine Ott (any pronouns), a museum curator in the division of medicine and science.
Conversation began with a circle question where everyone shared what memories and reflections they had about health education when they were growing up. Folks touched on experiences with the Presidential Physical Fitness Test, health classes, and other curricula. Dr. Ott covered a lot of ground on the histories of health marginalization and its legacy in the body. She demonstrated exercises she facilitates with grad students to better identify where in their bodies they react to external stimuli. Dr. Ott touched on colonialism and imperialism and how they impact health disparities. There was time for teachers to reflect on all that Dr. Ott shared, and then briefly discussed how they might incorporate what they learned into their curriculum this year.
One working group member shared:
Thank you for organizing! It was inspiring.
May 13, 2023:
The May meeting was held at the African American Civil War Museum. Currently, it is undergoing renovations and slated to reopen to the public in 2024. While the museum itself is taking a necessary pause from its typical engagement, the education department, managed by Dawn Chitty, was eager to meet with the upper elementary and secondary working group members. The museum aims to be a place where every D.C. student must pass through during their K-12 learning. With that goal in mind, Chitty guided our educators through a tour of the museum while it’s undergoing renovations. Chitty, who is the visionary behind the museum’s exhibits, painted a vivid picture of the exhibits to come.
She described artifacts that they had secured, including a Civil War era drum that’s in pristine condition and a stove that belonged to an elder relative of Michelle Obama in Chicago. Chitty guided the groups room-by-room to help folks envision how they could use the coming classroom spaces and resource center when they returned to the museum with their students. Folks in the working group — many of whom had visited the museum before the old site closed to the public in order to migrate into the new space — noted how excited they are about the reopening.
One working group member shared:
Today was very special — it's always an honor to be with Frank Smith and to listen and learn from him.
April 22, 2023:
Members of the elementary and middle/high school working groups gathered at Casey Trees on Earth Day 2023. After a competitive game of Kahoot — with questions related to climate justice — the group did a circle discussion with some prompts:
What was your relationship with the environment like growing up?
How do your students talk about the earth and environment?
After this grounding, the working group leadership team briefed everyone on the inspiration behind the resource the group would be developing that day:a math-based activity for students to better understand their water footprints. The group paired off and researched information about the production and distribution of sugarcane, avocado, beef, and cotton and how impactful each is on water. To help students extend their learning and application, the group also developed language to better understand the significance and repercussions of these industries on water. This lesson will be refined by the working groups to be published through DCAESJ as a resource for educators to adopt methods in their classrooms.
One member shared:
I like how action-driven this work is. I always feel like I contributed to something someone can use tangibly.
Resources
View-only copy of the meeting slideshow
March 2023:
In lieu of a formal meeting during the month of March, all working group members were encouraged to attend and/or participate in annual events from a few of our partner organizations. READ MORE.
February 18, 2023:
The focus of February’s meeting was a documentary film screening and discussion about D.C. statehood. After checking in with group members who Zoomed into the meeting, working group facilitators laid the foundation for the topic of discussion by asking how educators have taught about D.C. statehood in the past or how they envision or want to teach about it.
DCAESJ early childhood educator Nadine Foty has been working with a filmmaking team at Marigold Productions on The Last Battlefront. The production company’s founder, Anna Jihrad, joined the Zoom-based meeting for the film screening, feedback, and discussion. Working group members received secure access to the film to screen with their classes. Some also volunteered to work with Jihrad and her team in developing teaching materials to go alongside the film. Hannah and Raphael developed an Indigenous DMV Article Lesson designed for upper elementary school students.
January 7, 2023:
All DCAESJ working groups joined together and invited fellow D.C. area educators to share advice, build on resources, begin planning their BLM at School Week of Action, and continue to participate in the Year of Purpose. READ MORE.
December 10, 2022:
The elementary and secondary working groups met at Friends Place on Capitol Hill for their December meeting. Their topic was on the radical work of Martin Luther King Jr. and the many activists and organizers of the Civil Rights Movement. After a Kahoot grounding attendees in a few of the organizers with whom MLK associated, the groups walked through a multi-day unit with resources for learning about King developed by working group co-leader Raphael Bonhomme. The group built on one of the messages of the multi-day unit: movements are powered by many people, not just one leader. They expanded on this idea by creating a resource for students to learn about the team of organizers and activists that were instrumental in the Civil Rights Movement, including the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Resources:
November 19, 2022:
The elementary and secondary working groups held a joint meeting at Bruce-Monroe at Parkview ES on the topic of holidays in the classroom. The central inquiry was whether December should be considered the holiday season.
They kicked off the meeting with people’s history trivia about holidays. From there, they did a circle share on how they experienced holidays in their classrooms growing up, and how they’ve navigated them as teachers themselves. Group members then spent time exploring texts from Social Justice Books’ Holidays list to serve as fodder for the resources they’d be creating to help students explore religious and/or cultural and national holidays that happen *year round on the Gregorian calendar and decide if December is the “holiday season.” Activities for this lesson included activism for adding holidays and observances to the school or district calendar. Educators also raised how important it is to be sensitive to students around things like food for anyone that might be fasting, or asking about how students and their families spent days off from school for those who might not be able to afford or have been able to travel.
*group members took into consideration that holidays and other observances–such as Ramadan– often shift because of calendar differences
Resources:
October 15, 2022:
“I want my students to feel that they’re teachers, too.”
October’s meeting kicked off with some lively peoples’ history trivia about Indigenous peoples. Working group co-facilitators Mollie Safran, Hannah Halpern, and Raphael Bonhomme created rounds of questions that would be appropriate for elementary and secondary students, as well as questions for adults. From there, the groups engaged in a problem of practice, shared by Halpern. In short, Halpern wants her third grade students to more comprehensively explain and share how disparities they learn about in class are interconnected and part of larger systems that fail to meet community needs. She’s noticed that her students zero in on one particular jarring piece of information, but wants them to more fully communicate the context.
After lunch, the groups divided into grade level bands and spent time creating curricular resources and engaging in lesson sharing about ideas and activities for teaching about Indigenous people. Safran facilitated her group in reading Keepunumuk: Weeachumun’s Thanksgiving Story. After it was agreed upon that, while this title is flawed and, at the writers’ admission, this book’s narrative construction is not meant to “vilify the Pilgrims,” this book is receiving a lot of attention and will likely be a resource educators reach for in the coming weeks. This group read, discussed/critiqued, and drafted language that communicated the tepidness they felt about the book, and how to potentially use it as a learning tool.
September 17, 2022: The D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice early childhood, upper elementary, and secondary working groups convened to kick off their monthly meetings for the 2022–2023 school year. Educators decided to focus their convening on preparing to teach about Central America, especially during the October 3–9 Teach Central America Week.
The convening began with a trip to the National Museum of the American Latino’s first exhibit, ¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States (currently housed within the Smithsonian National Museum of American History), and to participate in their Hispanic Heritage Month Family Festival. Educators were excited to see that parts of the exhibit highlighted Central Americans in D.C., including Mario Bencastro’s typewriter.
The working groups then traveled to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library for community building via team trivia on Peoples’ History of Central America and enjoying pupusas. The groups then broke into two different rooms for grade level lesson development, collaboration and planning, and resource review around teaching Central America. READ MORE.
June 11, 2022: The anti-bias early childhood education, elementary, and secondary working groups all actively participated in the June 11th D.C. area #TeachTruth rally at the African American Civil War Memorial.
After the rally, working group members gathered at the Teaching for Change office to celebrate one another and the groups’ work this year. Thank you to working group leadership, members, and our interns Maddy, May, and Tayna for their work in preparing for both the #TeachTruthrally and the end of year celebration.
May 14, 2022: Alison Rice led the middle/high school People’s History working group in an activity reflecting on the words of James Baldwin in A Talk To Teachers.Together, educators shared how the two quotes resonated with them from perspectives of the experiences Baldwin was speaking to when the words were written and also the current climate around education. Learn more.
April 9, 2022: On Saturday, April 9th, the working group focused on the BLM at School Year of Purpose theme: Revolutionary Black Arts. In response to the question, "Who is a favorite revolutionary Black artist and/or a revolutionary piece of a Black artist's work?," participants highlighted various artworks and artists, all listed in this document for your review! Here is the slideshow used for trivia, as well as the answers to the trivia on Revolutionary Black Arts.
From there, the group discussed the topic, guided by the questions:
How are the themes and radical vision that they brought to their art reflected in your classroom and communities?
How can young people extend on these legacies?
Resources about Zora Neale Hurston, Alma Thomas, Augusta Savage, Jasmine Mans, and bell hooks, as well as a collection of classroom resources from the National Portrait Gallery, were shared.
Working group members shared:
This was a great session! So grateful I could join this session.
I really enjoyed having the focus of the meeting directly connected to one of the BLM Week of Action in Schools principles.
March 12, 2022: After some fellowship and check-in time discussing which blob person we related to the most, we heard from working group members about Black history month lessons and activities.
Rose Vigil and her class focused on the theme Fighting Systems of Oppression and used Mariame Kaba’s We Do This ‘Til We Free Us to guide their work (pics below of their displayed banners in D.C.!) Tif had local history & archaeology folks from Sugarland talk about the historic, post-emancipation Black community talk with teacher leaders.
Read more about Black Lives Matter at School lessons and activities in our newspost, and in stories on Ms. Ariel Alford (ACPS) and Beth Barkley (DCPS).
From there, we continued our study of Teaching for Black Lives with dialogue about disrupting high stakes testing. We also engaged in discussion with Jaime Koppel and Amyra of MoCo Defund Invest Coalition. Here is a slideshow that captures some of the ideas presented.
Working group members shared,
I really enjoyed all of the resources and the conversations I was able to engage in. I am really empowered to continue reading about high-stakes testing and figuring out ways to alleviate some of the pressure of testing in my school. I also feel very empowered to look more closely at the Black Swan toolkit.
I've so appreciated the issues that have been brought forward so far. It's helping me stay grounded and avoid tunnel vision in my own school and situations. I'm curious what those of us who are not dealing with these issues (testing, police in school) can be doing to better support these causes, in addition to fundraising.
February 12, 2022: the DCAESJ People’s History Secondary Working Group met to connect as a community of educators, discuss a people’s history lesson about transportation protests, and continue their Teaching for Black Lives book study. Read more.
January 8, 2022: All three working groups gathered virtually to connect and plan in preparation for Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action happening this year from Jan. 31st - Feb. 4th. The hour was rejuvenating and yielded thoughtful conversation around the 13 guiding principles and national demands for Black Lives Matter at School. They reviewed resources, such as padlets for early childhood, elementary, middle, and high school educators around Black Lives Matter at School. Working group members commented:
All the resources shared, the padlets and articles shared in the chats, are reinvigorating me to make plans now for the week of action and beyond. I will be returning to these as I plan and collaborate with colleagues at my school.
Thank you for everyone and this space! What an amazing group!
Thank you so much for this wonderful group of educators, resources, and space to share! I really appreciate it!
November 13, 2021: For their November meeting, the working group invited members of the other two working groups to accompany them on their tour of the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office. As always, our working groups analyze history from a people’s lens, and working group leaders Tif and Nicole made ties between Barton’s work in finding missing soldiers post Civil War with formerly enslaved people taking out newspaper ads to locate family from which they were separated. One working group member shared: "I think the tour was aligned to the people's history in that the story (although about one white woman) is an untold story that doesn't fit the power narrative. Her story is one of feminism, mutual aid, and another example of non-whites being treated (and thought of as more human) based on military service."
October 9, 2021: For their October meeting, the curriculum working group kicked off with trivia focused on people’s LGBTQ+ history. After this, Rose Vigil, an 8th grade teacher new to the working group this academic year, did a lesson share of the unit on Youth Activism that she wrote during this summer’s NEH Institute on the Civil Rights Movement. Working group members went into breakout rooms to read through and provide feedback on the resources Rose prepared, and the group met back in the main room to offer verbal feedback to Rose. Educators that provided feedback noted: “I liked the youth activism unit. Might use some of it in my sociology class,” and Rose shared, “I absolutely loved the fantastic feedback on the unit plan! So many brilliant ideas on how to revise or edit the plan.”
Cover page for Rose Vigil’s unit
September 11, 2021: The group kicked off with people’s history trivia of Latino/a/x/e to lift up the heritage month and prepare for Teach Central America Week. In breakout rooms, members collaborated on answering questions curated by Tiferet Ani and Nicole Clark. Nicole shared highlights from the previous month’s retreat to make sure all members were on the same page for the new academic year. While the school year was still new, it’s been a challenging one, and working group members engaged in structured reflection on their successes, challenges, and intentions for the school year. Educators shared that this meeting was especially helpful in reinforcing the support network and resource center this group can be, noting: “It was great! It was really nice to connect and have conversations with people. I love the facilitators and being a part of the group. I look forward to some of the upcoming ideas that came out of the retreat.”
August 21, 2021: To plan for the year ahead, the group members engaged in an in-person, half-day retreat! Working group members got reacquainted with a get to know you bingo, and were introduced to new staff members at Teaching for Change. Because of the McCarthy era like harassment of teachers who pledge to teach the truth, Education Anew Fellow Kimberly Ellis and Teaching for Change associate director Keesha Ceran co-facilitated the Subversives Mixer activity. The group spent time workshopping and editing the language of their group’s purpose. The group also did some visioning about what collective practices are missing, which ones are “nice to have,” and which ones they “must have.” The group closed out by drafting and sharing statements of purpose as social justice educators for the upcoming school year.
April 17, 2021: The group reflected on fugitive pedagogy, tried out a new lesson on Brown v. Board, and fostered community care. Read more.
March 20, 2021: The key themes and activities were: (a) explored how to help students prepare for and challenge the institutional efforts to decontextualize and mythologize the events of 2020 in an activity led by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca; and (b) shared two lessons “The Haudenosaunee Influence on U.S. Democracy” by Zo Clement and Voting Rights for D.C. by Amy Trenkle. Read more.
February 27, 2021: Tiffany Mitchell Patterson led the group in People’s History Trivia; everyone shared stories about their work during Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action (using a Padlet and in small groups); and Professor Greg Carr, chair of Africana Studies at Howard University and scholar ally for the group, spoke about the connection between the education work of Dr. Carter Woodson and the role of teachers today in “teaching for Black lives.”
January 9, 2021: Tif Ani led the group in a Civil Rights Movement quiz using Kahoot and then everyone shared stories about how they engaged with students around the events of Jan. 6 (the Capitol and Georgia). Next, participants selected from two small group presentations:
My Blood Unit Template by Nicole Clark, middle school social studies teacher at Two Rivers Public Charter School and a faculty member of the Two Rivers Learning Institute focusing on race and equity. The “Blood Unit” includes themes of art, journalism, and justice. Students use sources gathered through journalism to identify the injustices that people with sickle cell disease endure. Then they create art (poetry and poster) to not only bring awareness to the disease, but also the injustices experiences as a result of the lack of awareness about the disease.
Out My Window by Nancy Shia by Nancy Mirabal, associate professor at the University of Maryland and project director for Out My Window. Mirabal introduced the site and facilitated a dialogue about using it in the classroom. She noted that “Out My Window is both material and metaphor. Not all of the photos have been taken out of Nancy Shia’s window, but the window as metaphor and opening. In a time of continuous and uncritical visuality, a period marked by social media that demands our constant attention and gaze, Shia’s photos ask that we see with intention.”
December 12, 2020: Dasia Smith opened the session, welcoming the new members. The group participated in a lesson on COINTELPRO, led by high school teacher and lesson author Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Julita Brown-Dunn talked about her experiences with Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action in years past and invited reflections from participants about their plans for the week in 2021.
November 7, 2020: Tiffany Mitchell led the group in people’s history trivia, followed by small group discussions of the question: “How are you shaping your curriculum remotely to highlight the power of everyday people in the struggle for justice?” Then Caneisha facilitated a dialogue with guest speaker Jessie Hagopian on “Teaching for Liberation and Black Lives.” (Each member of the group receives a copy of the Rethinking Schools book co-edited by Hagopian, Teaching for Black Lives.) Caneisha then invited the participants to begin the process of refining the working group’s statement of purpose.
October 10, 2020: Following People’s History Trivia led by Tiffany Mitchell Patterson, participants selected from two sessions:
Writing with Digital Archives by Mary Phillips, who modeled the lesson for feedback. She described it as follows: “Writing with Archives facilitates critical thinking in my course Black Panther Women and Gender Politics. Students interpret digital archives on the Black Panther Party. They are asked to consider the rhetorical strategy related to the author's purpose, target audience, language used, and significance as well as the historical context.”
Limestone of Lost Legacies by Karen Lee and Lauryn Renford. They shared a lesson that will be used in conjunction with a magazine that they produced to tell the story of the five slain teens that are memorialized on the Limestone of Lost Legacies that went up in 2019.
August 22, 2020: Nicole Clark opened the session with a few rounds of trivia, using an online format she developed for her students and their families. (This was so popular that is became a regular opening for the working group sessions.) Then participants chose one of the lesson small groups below to both experience the lesson and give feedback to the author.
Still I Rise by Jessica Rucker. A mini-unit on themes of identity, visibility and representation, power, patriarchy and sexism, resistance, and resilience through a Black Queer Feminist lens. The goal of this unit is to use students’ lived experiences, as well as informational and literary texts, as a foundation to help them understand the impact of male supremacy/patriarchy and sexism and its impact on women, non-binary folks, and men.
Constitution Project Based Learning by Mollie Safran. Students imagine how they would have created the U.S. Constitution differently with a more diverse representation of the people living in America at the time of its creation.
July 11, 2020: The session began with participants creating a collective poem, “What I have learned from the global uprising against racism. . .” Following that, participants selected from among the following small group lesson presentations:
Mitigating the Impact of the Coronavirus on Vulnerable Communities: Creating Policy by Andre Gilford
Caneisha Mills, Nicole Clark, Jessica Rucker, and Tiferet Ani at the February 29 working group session at the Teaching for Change office.
Resisting dominant narratives lessons: monuments and memorials and their functions and legacies and having students create community art projects by Victoria Moten
Online unit on Akwaeke Emezi middle school book PET by Zo Clement
Racism, Resistance & Resilience in the 1920s: Historical Interpretation by Tiferet Ani
April 18 and May 9, 2020: The group shifted to meeting via Zoom and shared ways that they were bringing people’s history online. Two of those stories were documented and posted at the DCAESJ website.
February 22 and 29, 2020: Participants picked one of the two dates to meet in small groups at the Teaching for Change office to share and discuss lessons they were working on.
January 25, 2020: Professor Greg Carr, chair of Africana Studies at Howard University and a scholar ally for the group, spoke about the approach he and colleagues used to writing curriculum — outside the textbook — in Philadelphia. He also described the concept of citizenship in U.S. history in light of the #1619Project and this election year. (See video.) This was followed by a group discussion of social justice teaching objectives and curriculum about monuments. The group met at Roosevelt Senior High School (DCPS).
December 14, 2019: MCPS high school teacher Victoria Moten modeled a lesson on the #1619Project for English Language Arts and a group of D.C. high school students introduced the annual Food Justice Youth Summit, encouraging teachers to bring their students to the event in 2020. The group met at the DCPS central office.
November 9, 2019: Caneisha Mills modeled a lesson on teaching the truth about early U.S. history called "America: Resisting the Myth of Memory" drawing from the Time magazine cover that features the (supposed) "founding fathers." Jessica Fundalinski introduced the core components for an inter-disciplinary (science, math, social studies, health, ELA) environmental lesson on plastic. The group met at the historic Thurgood Marshall YMCA.
The DCAESJ working group session on November 9, 2019 at the historic Thurgood Marshall YMCA.