On Thursday, Feb. 7th, Center for Inspired Teaching held their second annual Intergenerational Speak Truth for the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. Students and community members from across the DC metro area gathered at Dunbar High School (DCPS) to engage in conversation focused on current social justice issues. 

In this new school year, we express our profound appreciation to Faye Colon for her work with Teaching for Change where she was the founding coordinator for the D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice. We also welcome new staff members Rosalie Reyes and Rachel Mehl. Read more >>

More than 70 Alexandria City Public School (ACPS) administrators gathered at the Lee Community & Senior Center on April 24 for a workshop on culturally relevant curriculum facilitated by Teaching for Change staff Faye Colon and Deborah Menkart. 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 >>

Inspired Teaching brought together students and adults from across the D.C. area to engage in intergenerational dialogue about Black Lives Matter. To kick-off the evening, Makia Green, a representative from the Black Lives Matter DMV chapter inspired the audience with her compelling story of how she began organizing for #BlackLivesMatter at a young age.

Inspired by the Black Lives Matter Movement, the Teen Writers of The Beacon House, a community-based organization in Northeast Washington, D.C. wrote The Day Tajon Got Shot.  The book tells the story of a teen killed in a police shooting from multiple perspectives, challenging the reader to gain knowledge from the whole picture. The young authors presented at Mt. Pleasant Library.

Teachers filled the house for an evening #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool Week of Action book talk by University of Florida associate professor Paul Ortiz about An African American and Latinx History of the United States.

The culmination of Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Schools was a powerful open mic poetry reading. Students of all ages and adults shared love poems to Black women with an enthusiastic audience. The evening was beautifully MC’ed by Joseph Green from Split This Rock and featured DJ BE. Wilson High School (DCPS) generously contributed the auditorium.

For the past two years, the Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) has invited Teaching for Change to provide educators with a three-part professional development course on teaching about Central America. To our knowledge, Alexandria is the only public-school district in the nation providing educators with a course on Central American history and culture. Read more >>

On November 14, 2017, twenty-two educators gathered at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery to partake in a workshop on a new exhibition titled The Sweat of Their Face: Portraying American Workers.

The majority of Latino students in DC schools have Central American heritage. However, their history and literature is largely absent from the curriculum. Thanks to support from the DCPS Language Acquisition Office, Teaching for Change offered free workshops on Central America during Latinx/Hispanic Heritage Month. Faye Colon, coordinator of teacher engagement and professional development, visited classrooms at Ballou High School, Dunbar High School, and Roosevelt Senior High School to lead our popular... 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 >>

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 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 >>

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 >>

Fourteen D.C. area teachers gathered on Sunday afternoon (October 25) to write stories from their classrooms. This was the first session in a year-long course launched by Teaching for Change. As a result of writing and reflecting together, teacher participants will deepen their own practice, build community among D.C. area social justice educators, and contribute to the all-too-scarce collection of published descriptions of classroom practice by teachers themselves. Read more >>

Fifth graders at Randle Highlands Elementary School enjoyed a hands-on go-go workshop taught by legendary drummer, William ‘JuJu’ House. With JuJu’s guidance, students excitedly took to the assorted drums, tambourines, and other percussion instruments and played basic go-go beats to the delight of their classmates, teachers, and JuJu himself. Vocalist Staci Payne (currently of Be’la Dona) also joined the session, and the visit quickly became a boisterous ‘in-the-pocket’ battle between the boys and the girls. Read more >>