On Thursday, May 9, high school students at Ballou High School celebrated the launch of their book, The Ballou We Know, a collection of essays and poems as part of The Ballou Story Project with Shout Mouse Press. Each student had a unique story and used their personal narrative to talk back to and counter negative and deficit conversations about their community in the media. Read more >>

As middle school students entered the auditorium at Sacred Heart School on May 8, they beamed when they saw Salvadoran novelist and painter, Mario Bencastro, sitting in the front row. Students diligently prepared for this momentous occasion by studying Bencastro’s work, focusing on his poem, Un Tren Llamado Esperanza. Read more >>

On Saturday, April 27, 2019, the Antiracist Research and Policy Center held the First Annual National Antiracist Book Festival at American University in Washington, D.C. Among the hundreds of attendees were Teaching for Change staff and a board member. In addition to being mesmerized by the panel presentations throughout the day, we had the honor of offering a teacher workshop in the afternoon. Read more >> 

“The mainstream news media often covers the perpetrators of hate crimes, but seldom do we hear the voices of survivors,” Arjun Sethi explained to the close to 20 educators gathered for a workshop on his book, American Hate: Survivors Speak Out (The New Press, 2018). The workshop was held on the evening of May 9, 2019 at the historic Thurgood Marshall YMCA. Teachers arrived to a beautiful spread of humus, grape leaves, baklava, and more delicious food donated by the Virginia based Mediterranean Bakery and Café. Read more >>

On April 30, Teaching for Change staff member Rosalie Reyes, joined families from all 50 states and the District of Columbia as they stormed Capitol Hill for Strolling Thunder to ask Congress to Think Babies! Read more >>

Middle school students at Capital City Public Charter School and educators Lapeta Solomon and Mrs. Amanda Yeager have formed the school's first Gender Neutral Alliance. Lapeta Solomon is the 8th Grade Inclusion Humanities teacher at Capital City Public Charter School and a 2018 Education First, SEL Innovation Award winner for her work in founding the MS Gender Neutral Alliance and Gender Sensitivity Training for teachers and staff. Read more >>

Can you name a historical figure from Central America? This was one of the opening questions Teaching for Change Executive Director Deborah Menkart asked a class of graduate students in Dr. Elizabeth Langran’s Cross-cultural/International Curricula class at Marymount University. Read more >>

Jerome Foster II opened the Third Annual D.C. Area Climate Justice Summit with a moving speech that encouraged his peers to take a stand and speak up about the importance of climate justice. The summit, organized and run by Youth Climate Summit USA, is completely youth led. This year’s D.C. area event took place on April 24th at the Silver Spring Civic Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. Read more >>

Dr. Ivory Toldson, author of No BS (Bad Stats): Black People Need People Who Believe in Black People Enough Not to Believe Every Bad Thing They Hear about Black People, shared this profound statement at the talk hosted by D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice and  Eaton DC. on Wednesday, April 24.  Read more >>

We all know what “The End” means when reading a children’s book. The story has concluded. The last sentence of a book can also indicate to a reader that there is closure. But what are the consequences of that closure when it comes to books about ongoing social movements? Isn’t there always more to the story? Or is the struggle for justice over? Read more >>

The 5th Annual Food Justice Youth Summit, a collaboration between Capital City Public Charter School and the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability & Environmental Sciences (CAUSES), was an all-day (April 12), interactive event where DC youth lead workshops focusing on various issues related to food justice. Read more >>

Picture high school students filing into a school boundary town hall meeting for their local school district. They sit down amongst parents, community members, administrators, and teachers, waiting patiently for the opportunity for public comment. As the meeting breaks into small group discussion, students disperse and share their concerns about the racism and segregation they witness in their own community. They not only draw from their powerful and moving personal experiences, but tie in literature, examples from history, and data. Read more >>

Close to 80 teachers convened at Howard University on April 13, 2019, to participate in a Reconstruction Teach-In as part of the Teach Reconstruction campaign. Read more >>

The National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Early Childhood Education Initiative hosted a Family Day on Saturday, April 13th inspired by the the museum’s first children’s book, A is for All the Things You Are: A Joyful ABC Book, written by Anna Forgerson Hindley and illustrated by Keturah A. Bobo. Each child in attendance received their very own copy of the book to take home! Read more >>

By Ashley Chu.

One of the earliest stories children hear is the familiar tale of Cinderella. While there are hundreds of Cinderella narratives from dozens of cultures, the most common one in American households is the version that traces its origins to French author Charles Perrault’s 1967 Histoires ou contes du temps passé, Cendrillonin… Read more >>

Revisiting the incident, I learned never to doubt the abilities of my students to communicate meaningful information. Jack is sometimes inattentive in class, playful, and has some speech challenges, so I developed a misconception about him.

On February 6, students at Francis L. Cardozo Education Campus (DCPS) hosted lunchtime events for Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action.

On March 20th, 2019 the District of Columbia State Board of Education ceremonial resolution was officially passed, recognizing the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action, CR19-6. The resolution proposed by Ward 8 member and Vice President of the State Board of Education, Markus Batchelor, received unanimous consent for the resolution.

Over the course of two weeks, an early childhood teacher explores each of the 13 Black Lives Matter Movement guiding principles with her students through discussion and read alouds.

In my 5th grade ELA class at Munda Verde Bilingual PCS, each day during the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action, a family member from our class came in and described what Black Lives Matter means to them. With gallery walks and dialogues, students became experts on the 13 guiding principles of the Black Lives Matter Movement.