On April 24, close to 100 D.C. area educators filled the Blackburn Center at Howard University for a teach-in on the hidden history and relevance today of Reconstruction. The event was hosted by the Howard University School of Education, Teaching for Change’s D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice, and the Zinn Education Project as part of the Zinn Education Project campaign to teach Reconstruction. Read more >>

Teaching for Change partnered with Filmfest DC: The Washington, DC International Film Festival for a seventh year to spread the word about the international film festival and to bring filmmakers into D.C. classrooms. Filmmakers from Queens in Training, Puerto Rico: Citizens in Peril, and The Foreigners' Home visited four classrooms. Students learned a lot from viewing the documentaries, preparing questions, and interacting with the filmmakers. Read more >>

At Claremont Immersion Elementary (Arlington Public Schools), fifth grade teacher Wendy Bermudez had her class engage in the popular role play, The People vs. Columbus, et al. The lesson, written in the form of a trial by Bill Bigelow of Rethinking Schools, is available for free download on the Zinn Education Project website. Read more >>

I used a number of lessons from D.C. Area Black LIves Matter Week of Action resource page and others I collected at that BLM curriculum share. #Lastwords was one of the most powerful lessons for many of my students.I have a number of students with significant learning disabilities as well. So in their classes, I used the lesson related to the book Milo's Museum. We're still working on this unit, but they seem to really be enjoying it!

The D.C. Area Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Schools gave a powerful start to Black History Month in classrooms across the Washington, D.C. area. Pre-K — 12th grade teachers in more than 100 schools taught lessons about structural racism, intersectional Black identities, and Black history.

Makia Green, a member of Black Lives Matter DC chapter, visited my kindergarten classroom, provided a  presentation to students and read Child of the Civil Rights Movement.

Now that February is ending (how is it already March?!), we are looking back to the beginning of the month when we participated in the nationwide Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action.  When talking about something like Black Lives Matter with third graders, we work hard to make sure that the points of entry and examples are tangible, accessible, and developmentally appropriate.