Teaching for Change was pleased to partner with Filmfest DC in October of 2020 for the ninth year to bring filmmakers to DC classrooms. Through this partnership, students and educators gained access to the 34th Washington, D.C. International Film Festival documentaries to view at home, and ten classes hosted filmmakers, including two films in the Justice Matters series. Here are descriptions of the virtual classroom visits.

Teaching for Change hosted the second annual Teach Central America Week from October 5 – 11, 2020. Hundreds of teachers from 35 states and the District of Columbia signed up to participate and organizations across the country endorsed the week. If you haven’t already, we encourage you to sign up to pledge to Teach Central America and share your stories about how you teach about Central America all year long. Here, we share news about lessons, events, teaching stories, and resources from this year’s Teach Central America Week.

On Friday October 9, eighty high schoolers from Capital City Public Charter School in Washington D.C. joined a Zoom call with Claudia Sparrow, director and producer of the film Maxima. Maxima follows Máxima Acuña, a Peruvian activist fighting a multinational gold mining corporation over rights to her land.

During the 2020 election season, D.C. educators Lia Bengtson and Tarja Lewis, along with a few of their colleagues, planned to conduct a mock election at their school. Lia wrote, “It grew way beyond our expectations. We ended up having 34 schools in 23 states and the District of Columbia participate.”

As schools across the country moved to emergency remote learning, Erin Coppola-Klein, 7th- and 8th- grade advisor and social studies teacher at Capitol Hill Day School, wanted to continue to provide interactive and engaging lessons for students. Coppola-Klein used the U.S. Mexico War lesson in the form of a mixer by Bill Bigelow with 22 7th- grade students.

Teaching for Change is hosting the second annual Teach Central America Week from October 5 – 11, 2020. Hundreds of teachers from 29 states and the District of Columbia have signed up to participate and organizations have endorsed the week. We have added several new resources for teaching about Central America to our website, including new books and teaching guides appropriate for use with elementary students.

Join Salvadoran American journalist Roberto Lovato, author of the new book Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas, for a virtual book talk.

Teaching for Change is partnering with Filmfest DC: The Washington, D.C. International Film Festival (Oct 2 - Oct 11) for a ninth year to spread the word about the international film festival and to bring films and filmmakers for films into D.C. virtual classrooms. FilmFest DC is offering tickets for four classes to see specific films during the festival and offering two opportunities for film producers to virtually visit a class.

This year, D.C. educators, Lia Bengtson and Tarja Lewis presented during the 2020 National Deaf Education Conference. Bengston and Lewis are middle school educators at the Kendall Demonstration School, Secondary School for the Deaf. Their presentation, Exploring Hidden Narratives to Engage Diverse Students cover topics of representation and cross-curricular lessons that teach hard history.

Teaching for Change stands proudly with the local and national organizers and educators who are calling for Police Free Schools.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and Teaching for Change will host the annual Indigenous People’s Day Teach-In online on Saturday, September 12, 2020. The focus this year is environmental justice, in particular food and climate.

When the pandemic closed the doors of global studies teacher Gregory Landrigan’s middle school classroom at Sacred Heart School in D.C., he decided to shelve the lessons he’d planned for the rest of the year. “What do you want to learn?” he asked the students. “What matters to you most?” With the answers to these questions, he invited students to explore a topic of interest to them through an independent study.

As we navigate these uncertain and challenging times, we invite you to explore these ongoing virtual learning events and online community gatherings.

Educators and students across the country are adjusting to the new reality of teaching from a distance while letting students know they are still a close part of our community.

Please tell us how you are adapting lessons with social justice themes during emergency distance learning

U.S. history high school teacher Jessica Rucker at E.L. Haynes shares a lesson she has used with her students during the pandemic for their asynchronous learning.

Here is a growing list of D.C. metro area teaching stories from during this time of emergency online learning due to COVID-19.

The second series of the D.C. Educators for Equity book club began in early January of this year. Classroom educators, librarians, media specialists, and school coordinators gathered at Tubman Elementary (DCPS) school to explore Cornelius Minor’s We Got This: Equity, Access, and the Quest To Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be.

Educators and students everywhere are adjusting to the new reality of teaching from a distance while letting students know they are still a close part of our community. We share below a few resources for teaching in these times.

Ms. Corliss, a special education teacher at Jefferson Middle School Academy (DCPS), led a Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action lesson aligned to the guiding principle, “Black Women.”

Students are leading the charge in combating this climate crisis, with groups like Zero Hour and U.S. Youth Climate Strike standing up for their futures and advocating for changes in climate policy. But what about our youngest learners? How can we encourage young children to become the future leaders in the fight for climate justice?