A Week of Action. A Year of Purpose. A Lifetime Commitment. And all of this can start with just a few hours of planning. On Saturday, January 7th, all DCAESJ working groups joined together and invited fellow D.C. area educators to share advice, build on resources, begin planning their BLM at School Week of Action, and continue to participate in the Year of Purpose.

On Saturday, January 21, hundreds of educators gathered virtually to connect, collaborate, and prepare for the 2023 National Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action (February 6–10) and Year of Purpose.

Teach the Beat joined DC Public Library and Capital City Go-Go in the basketball team’s “The Beat Keeps Going” game, held on November 15, 2022,  in celebration of #GoGoPreservationWeek. 

Students learned about the Gods & Goddesses of the Nahua, Aztec, and Maya, and then made Hojalatas based on symbols and imagery from different cultures in the area, honoring the Indigenous cultures that paved the way for much of what is still celebrated and practiced in the countries of Central America through food, art, literature, music, dance, and language.

The third annualk Teach Central America Expo at Bruce-Monroe ES @ Park View (DCPS). remained an intentional, collaborative, and joyous expression of the importance of teaching about Central America!

Students at Cardozo EC — most of whom are newly arrived students from outside the United States — taught other students about the countries from which they migrated.

Hannah Halpern and Megan Burleigh welcomed Teaching Central America advisor Jeannette Noltenius and her colleague Flori Berrocal to their classes at Hearst ES (DCPS) for a reading of Mario Bencastro’s A Train Called Hope/Un Tren Llamado Esperanza.

Students from Roosevelt’s International Academy, which includes many students who are newcomers to the United States from Central America, kicked off Teach Central America Week 2022 with a visit from An Open Book Foundation, Shout Mouse Press, and Santos, one of the contributing authors of Voces Sin Fronteras: Our Stories, Our Truth.

The three D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice working groups convened a joint meeting to prepare to teach about Central America this school year, especially during the October 3–9 Teach Central America Week. Educators began with a trip to the National Museum of the American Latino’s first exhibit, ¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States.

On August 24, 2022 Teaching for Change’s Teach Central America program specialist Jonathan Peraza Campos and Vanessa Williams, D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice’s program manager, co-facilitated a professional development for D.C. public schools entitled “Central American Literature in the Classroom.”

On Saturday, August 20, more than 100 educators from across the D.C. area convened at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library for the inaugural DCAESJ Social Justice Curriculum Fair.

“The Color Line…Teach it! Reconstructing the South…Teach it! Teaching SNCC…Teach it! What we don’t learn about the Prison Industrial Complex…Teach it! The Black Panther Party…Teach it! Who Gets to Vote? Teach it! Those were the chants heard at the African American Civil War Memorial in DC on Saturday, June 11 for the #TeachTruth event hosted nationally by the Zinn Education Project, African American Policy Forum, and Black Lives Matter at School.