In my 12th grade English class at Parkdale High School (PGCPS), students connected their own experiences and heritage with the Proctor and Gamble commercial, "The Talk”. Students also participated in an interview with NBC News4 that highlighted an alumni of Parkdale who was a victim of police brutality.

Students in a fifth-grade DCPS classroom at Langley Elementary School explored the Black Lives Matter guiding principles of Restorative Justice, Empathy and Loving Engagement. The teacher invited the students to explore the meaning of difference, diversity, and community. 

My three and four-year-old pre-school students and I read the book One by Katherine Otoshi and discussed what it means to be a bystander and ally as well as addressing restorative justice in the story. The children drew pictures inspired by the book. The text is their words describing what they drew.

One of the thirteen principles of the #BLM movement is Black Villages. The Inspired Teaching Demonstration School hosted "Voices of our Village," an event during which families, teachers, and school leaders had honest conversations about diversity and equity. They looked at student work, discussed implications of taking this on, and brainstormed next steps to keep this energy in their school.

Here are stories from DC area classrooms from Day Five of Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Schools.

Early childhood students and families at The Inspired Teaching Demonstration School began to work on a #BlackLivesMatter mural this morning. Students in Pk through 8th grade will have the opportunity to add their messages throughout the week as part of the D.C. Area Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Schools.

Kenmore Middle School educator, Dr. Tiffany Mitchell, started her class today by asking her students to share what they know about the Black Lives Matter movement. Student responses included, “people marching and saying Black Lives Matter in response to police brutality,” and “football players taking a knee during the national anthem as a form of protest.”

Producers, Dr. Kmt Shockley and Kofi LeNiles, provided an engaging and interactive African centered history workshop for ninth grade students at Friendship Technology Preparatory Academy. At the core of their workshop was the history and culture of a maroon community called Palenque, San Basilio (Palenque). Palenque is located in Colombia, South America and is the focus of their upcoming documentary entitled "For Humanity: Culture, Community and Maroonage."

This week, in my middle school and high school Spanish classes we have engaged in discussion about the Black Lives Matter Movement and also Black people of Latin America in many different ways.  These have been meaningful discussions, and my Spanish 1 class is working on a project that will turn into a Socratic Seminar next week (here's the lesson) and a video news report on their research.

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.

Teachers in our Stories from Our Classrooms alumni group responded to the following prompt in their session on January 28: “In a school where Black Lives Matter, we….” This visioning was ideal preparation for the DC Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Schools.  Read more >>

A beautiful archival website is now online about the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The site, called the SNCC Digital Gateway, provides a comprehensive, student-friendly archive of the history of SNCC. It was produced by the SNCC Legacy Project, Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies, and Duke University Libraries. Read more >>

By Jorge Cordoba
At the Free Minds, Free People conference in Baltimore this summer, I stopped by the Teaching for Change table. They graciously donated copies of the book Caribbean Connections: Moving North for my high school ESOL students. This group of students, ranging in age from 14 to 20 years old, attend a large suburban high school in Gambrills, Maryland. They come from many different countries including Thailand, El Salvador, Nigeria… Read more >>

On Wednesday, January 17, Professor Ibram X. Kendi, founder and director of the Anti-Racist Research and Policy Center at American University, will offer a presentation for teachers based on his book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. Read more >>

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 >>

As part of their community engagement program, every year at Sidwell Friends School, PK-12 students and faculty collaborate with nonprofit organizations that focus on a range of social justice issues. On November 2, 2017, prior to visiting their community partners, Sidwell School faculty provided seventh and eighth grade students with a day to learn more about the organizations they would be placed with for service learning. One of the key tenets for the day was establishing a partnership that works… 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 >>

More than thirty teachers gathered on October 2, 2017 for an Indigenous People’s Curriculum Night at Busboys and Poets. Hosted by D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice, the event began with a “people bingo” activity that provided educators from various schools and organizations an opportunity to meet and get to know one another. Through a combination of brief presentations and structured discussions, educators shared curriculum ideas and strategies for teaching about Columbus and Indigenous People’s history and life today. Read more >>

This month, all of the 8th grade social studies teachers at Alice Deal Middle School (DCPS) engaged their students 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. The lesson is a prime example of how to engage students in learning through role play and debate. Read more >>