Teaching for Change

"In 2001, I wrote an article titled, Organize! A Look at Labor History in Young Adult Fiction, which was published in the National Council of Teachers of English’s young adult literature journal, The ALAN Review. In that analysis I examined how unions and labor were represented in historical fiction for young readers, and unfortunately, though not surprisingly, found that not only were they misrepresented, but that they were consistently represented negatively.

In the 20 years since the publication of that article, there have been changes in the state of organized American labor but have there been changes in books for young readers?" -- Deborah Overstreet

Read in full below:

Labor History Without Unions in Young Adult Fiction - Social Justice Books By Deborah Overstreet In 2001, I wrote an article titled, Organize! A Look at Labor History in Young Adult Fiction, which was published in the National Council of Teachers of English’s young adult literature journal, The ALAN Review. In that analysis I examined how unions and labor were represente...

With misinformation about immigration being spread during this election season, we encourage teachers and parents to share children's books that help paint an accurate picture of the push factors and the immigrant experience.

Find carefully selected books on the list below for K-12 and adults from our Social Justice Books collection.

Teaching About Immigration | Social Justice Books Titles we recommend on immigration and the immigrant experience with a focus on the United States.

Great turnout and great energy at the third annual D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice Curriculum Fair!

Educators are being disrespected, pushed out of the field, and threatened with criminalization for teaching the truth. Young people are receiving an inaccurate and incomplete education.

Friends like Erika and Jim know education is the best way to secure a more just future. Please join them by supporting Teaching for Change.

Our goal for the next five years is to expand the reach of our work into 10,000 schools.

Expanding our reach to 10,000 schools can enable young people to address the climate crisis, militarism, immigration, poverty, incarceration, and other injustices.

Help us realize a better future by making a donation. Click the donate button or go to TeachingforChange.org/donate (🔗 in bio).

August isn’t just filled with back-to-school activity, it’s bustling with birthday celebrations too! 🥳

Join us in celebrating the birthdays of these August-born babies who drive the work we coordinate here at Teaching for Change! Enjoy your birthday month! 🎉🥳

We’re hiring! Visit our website at TeachingForChange.org/about/employment to learn more about how to join our team!

What do U.S. history textbooks say about Central America? Not enough according to Teaching for Change summer interns Olvin Abrego Ayala and Eli Hertzler-McCain. Olvin and Eli have been reading and critiquing widely used textbooks. They have found that there is a lot of attention (although incomplete) on the Vietnam War, but very little about the major role the U.S. has played in Central America.

Stay tuned for their extensive critique.

In the meantime, check out TeachingCentralAmerica.org where they have added a lot to the sections on films, artists, and countries (under themes).

Eli Hertzler-McCain not only interned at Teaching for Change this summer — she invited people to donate to the organization when she set a new personal powerlifting record of 332.5 kg.

Read more and contribute to her fundraiser for Teaching for Change as we celebrate our 35th anniversary!

teachingforchange.org/powerlifting-for-change

Our Zinn Education Project, in collaboration with Rethinking Schools, supports the teaching of people’s history with free lessons, workshops, online classes, and campaigns to Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, Teach Reconstruction, , , and more. Learn more at ZinnEdProject.org.

D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice will host the third annual Social Justice Curriculum Fair on Saturday, August 17, 2024!

Participate in interactive workshops designed to develop enriching curricula that challenges students to be critical thinkers and active community members. Network with fellow educators and social justice organizations, attend workshops, receive a PD certificate, and receive a book of your choice!

Workshops include:

- Bridging the Gap: A Cross-Generational Dialogue between Students and Teachers

- Harnessing the Power of Visual Learning: Using Images to Teach Palestine

- Honoring Family Structures in the Anti-Bias Early Childhood Classroom

- Intro to Peace & Conflict Studies: Using Galtung's Typologies of Violence to help students understand systematic oppression

- Numbers and Narratives: Teaching Central America

- Precedented: Deportations on Trial Lesson

- Teaching Central America Through History and Fiction

REGISTER TODAY at https://bit.ly/sojustfair24

While Teaching for Change is a national organization, we have dedicated place-based work in the D.C. metro area. Our D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice hosts working groups, public forums, workshops, and more.

We also coordinate Teach the Beat (TeachTheBeat.org) to bring the unique history and music of go-go into D.C. area schools with lessons and teaching artists.

Learn more at DCAreaEducators4SocialJustice.org .

The Civil Rights Movement is one of the most commonly taught stories about the fight for democracy and equal rights. However, the powerful stories of everyday people organizing and working together for social change are lost in the focus on a few major heroes and dates.

Our book, Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching and companion website, CivilRightsTeaching.org, offers free lessons and other resources to teach people’s history.

Our intern Olvin, who is working on our Teach Central America campaign, joined the protest this afternoon of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress. We join the demand for a lasting ceasefire now.

Since 1994, we have curated children’s and young adult books for teachers, first with a mail order catalog for 15 years, a brick-and-mortar store at Busboys and Poets for 10 years, and our online site ever since.

We offer a critically reviewed selection of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators at SocialJusticeBooks.org. Our booklists and reviews are organized around themes such as Black history, Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, climate justice, Palestine, pedagogy, and more. We engage in campaigns to hold publishers accountable and collaborate with organizations including Africa Access, American Indians in Children’s Literature, and the Américas Award.

Teaching for Change began as the Network of Educators’ Committees on Central America (NECCA), a network of teacher groups around the country that formed to support Central American immigrant students and challenge U.S. foreign policy in the region. While Teaching for Change’s work has expanded, our focus on Central America continues to fill a critical gap, providing academic resources for pre-K–12 classrooms.

In 2019, we launched Teach Central America Week (October 7–11 this year) to focus attention on the region during Latinx Heritage Month. We offer lessons, booklists, profiles, poetry, and readings for free use by classroom teachers at TeachingCentralAmerica.org .

Teaching for Change provides teachers and parents with the tools to create schools where students learn to read, write, and change the world.

By drawing direct connections to real world issues, Teaching for Change encourages teachers and students to question and re-think the world inside and outside their classrooms; build a more equitable, multicultural society; and become active global citizens.

Our professional development, publications, and parent organizing programs serve teachers, other school staff, and parents.

To make sure young people are not gullible to the hateful election campaign rhetoric about immigrants, here are books for K-12 that shine a light on the reasons people are forced to leave their home (often as a last resort), their arduous journey (often across many borders), and their experience making a home here.

Teaching About Immigration | Social Justice Books Titles we recommend on immigration and the immigrant experience with a focus on the United States.

“Never get used to injustice. It is an unnatural condition. Even if you can’t remove the injustice today, continue to call it by its correct name.” — Enidlee Consultants

Wishing a very happy birthday to the brilliant and inspirational Dr. Enid Lee!

Enid Lee Consultants A leader in anti-racist education.Enid Lee Consultants specializes in anti-racist education and organizational change by providing on-site and on-line opportunities for professional learning and community building. Learn More Now available as a Digital Download!Checking & Changing My Systems For Equ...

It was wonderful to finally meet Valencia Abbott in person after years of interactions during Zinn Education Project Teach the Black Freedom Struggle classes, the Teach Truth campaign, about books, and more. Valencia visited our office with her colleague Logan Greene. In photo with DCAESJ program manager Vanessa Williams and TFC summer interns Olvin Abrego Ayala and Eli Heltzer-McCain.

DC area educators: Sign up now for the UMD Frederick Douglass Center for Leadership Through the Humanities Freedom Teaching summer institute. Free. Great workshops and participants. PD credits and breakfast/lunch included. Friday, July 19.

2nd Annual Freedom Teaching Summer Institute: Freedom Teaching — D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice Inspired by the 60th anniversary, legacy, and ongoing significance of Freedom Summer and Freedom Schools, the theme for this year’s Summer Institute will be Freedom Teaching. Maryland, DC, and Virginia secondary school and community-based educators are encouraged to attend!

A six-foot wax replica of the Lincoln memorial entitled “40 ACRES: Camp Barker” has melted in the record-breaking heat. While the figure, made with wax designed to withstand 140 degree heat, was intended to be burned as a candle and change over time, it could not withstand the sustained extreme temperatures. The statue, which sits blocks from our office, is on the grounds of an elementary school full of children whose future is melting as well.

This installation, which was designed to bring attention to D.C.’s Civil War-era contraband camps that housed formerly enslaved and free African Americans, has now gained national attention as a commentary on climate change from outlets such as the Today Show and USA TODAY.

The artist Sandy Williams https://www.sandywilliamsiv.com/ stated, “The ways we are hurdling through all of the climate disaster projections, ceilings, and barriers should be unacceptable AND the roots of our problems go as far back (farther) as enslavement, Lincoln, and our failures to reconstruct. These roots, and our current social, political, and climate disasters, are also intrinsically related to the ongoing genocides, displacements, hyper-militarizations, and the global warfare that is empirically destroying our planet. It must end!”

It is urgent to teach about climate justice. Find books to teach about the environment and climate justice at Social Justice Book https://socialjusticebooks.org/booklists/environment/. Find free lessons, a climate crisis timeline, and more at Zinn Education Project https://www.zinnedproject.org/campaigns/teach-climate-justice .

Olvin Abrego, one of our summer interns, attended the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in D.C. to enjoy the performance of Indigenous Guatemalan singer-songwriter Sara Curruchich. Olvin, who is working on our Teaching Central America program, said he loved the “celebration of love and resistance showcased through Sara Curruchich’s art.”

Curruchich is one of the first artists to sing in Kaqchikel to an international audience. Her art is timely, as she sings about issues of Indigeneity, feminism, kinship, queerness, and more.

We’re thankful for performances like hers and the Smithsonian’s commitment to bring Central American artists to a wide audience.

Find FREE resources for teaching and learning about Central America at our website https://www.teachingcentralamerica.org/

Central American Studies major and TFC summer intern Olvin Abrego Ayala wrote this wonderful review of the picture book, "Margarito’s Forest / El Bosque de don Margarito" from Hard Ball Press. Find out why he highly recommends the book for teaching about Central America.

Margarito’s Forest / El Bosque de don Margarito - Social Justice Books Reviewed by Olvin Abrego Ayala Review Source: Teaching for Change Book Author: Margarito’s Forest/El Bosque de Don Margarito is a nonfiction narrative that centers on the real-life legacy of Margarito Esteban Álvarez Velázquez, affectionately known as Don Margarito, a member of the K’iche’ c...

Our refreshed design is part of how we are strengthening our work during our 35th anniversary year.

Our new logo, with elements of an open book and a rising sun, represents our work with teachers to go beyond the textbook and toward new horizons.

This update to our look is just the start of important work ahead. In the next five years, between now and our 40th Anniversary, we’re setting out to bring Teaching for Change’s resources to 10,000 schools — that’s 10% of all schools in the country.

We want you to be part of our next chapter. Make a 35th Anniversary donation today to celebrate what we’ve achieved and strengthen our impact in the years ahead.

✨Some exciting news✨ is coming this week!

As part of our 35th Anniversary campaign, we’re going to glow up and we want you to help us celebrate. Keep an eye on your inbox and our social channels for an announcement this week, and join us to celebrate when you see it!

As the 2023–2024 school year ends, we at Teaching for Change thank you! Together, we’ve empowered educators, engaged students, and fostered social justice in classrooms across the nation.

In the past year, we hosted the 5th Annual Teach Central America Week, our annual teach-ins with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, a national Black Lives Matter at School Curriculum Fair, the 2nd Annual Social Justice Curriculum Fair for D.C. area educators, and much more. Our Social Justice Books website remains a vital resource for teachers, librarians, and parents.

Your support is crucial. Donations help us provide anti-racist teaching resources, host curriculum fairs, and advocate for social justice in education. Read more about our work and how you can get involved at https://www.teachingforchange.org/2023-24-school-year-highlights (link in bio).

We are lucky to have two wonderful interns at Teaching for Change this summer:

- Eli Heltzer-McCain, an education and history major at Smith College who plans to teach high school history
- Olvin Abrego Ayala, a Latin American Studies student at Dartmouth College with a focus on Central American Studies

They met last week with Teach Central America program advisor Marcy Campos to discuss the lessons and book reviews they are writing about Central America for TeachingCentralAmerica.org and SocialJusticebooks.org (links in bio).

Immigration has always been a hotly debated political issue in the United States, but the temperature has risen in the last number of years. During Trump’s four years in office, 1.5 million immigrants were deported, and the Biden administration is on track to meet the same pace.

Donald Trump’s promises to take tough action on and to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border have been staples of both of his presidential campaigns.

Most of the current immigration debates ignore the historical roots of migration to the United States and the history of immigration policy in the latter half of the 20th century.

The series of lessons in the unit “The Roots of Immigration from El Salvador
and Current Policy Debates” uses the country of El Salvador as a case study to provide important historical context for contemporary immigration issues.

The unit begins with an exploration of how the Civil War in El Salvador in the 1980s prompted the initial surge of migration from El Salvador to the United States, and the push and pull factors that have impacted immigration from El Salvador since then. Next, students research the various immigration policies that have regulated immigration from El Salvador since 1965. Then students fact-check common myths about immigration to the United States. Finally, students select one of the current immigration policy questions and research competing perspectives before developing their own position, which they formulate in a persuasive essay format or an advocacy letter to an elected official.

Download the lesson unit at TeachingCentralAmerica.org/immigration-from-el-salvador.