Ideas This Week
Ideas This Week is your hub for updates on all things Facing History—from announcements and featured press to expert interviews, impact stories, and essays on the ideas driving our work.
Revisiting Mockingbird During Banned Books Week
As Banned Books Week begins on September 18, it invites us to reflect upon the narratives that we choose to amplify within our communities and those we choose to silence. One text that has long provoked questions for American educators is Harper Lee’s 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.
![Gregory Peck (left) and Brock Peters in a pivotal scene from the 1962 film "To Kill a Mockingbird."](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-04/atticus_and_tom_robinson_in_court.gif?h=fa747474&itok=gA60t0Vr)
8 Components of a Reflective Classroom
These points are key to creating a brave, nurturing, and safe learning space.
![Students sit in a classroom.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-09/Los%20Angeles_Summit_2019_FH2109030.jpg?h=06ac0d8c&itok=XDUUyehT)
How to Be an Upstander: How to Find Your Civic Superpower
This piece offers a number of ideas for getting involved in one’s community and beginning to pinpoint areas where we are each best poised to make an impact.
![Picture of civic superpower.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-08/civic.superpower.png?h=983b51a0&itok=o3E_VRLj)
On Living Deliberately
Kaitlin Smith offers personal reflections on what it means to live deliberately.
![Kaitlin Smith kneeling in front of a rock pile and cairns left by visitors at the original site of Henry David Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond State Reservation in Concord, Massachusetts.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2023-10/waldenKS3.jpg?h=818f1ba2&itok=S_RIxh3h)
How to Be an Upstander: 5 Tips for Civic Dialogue in an Online World
In this short piece, Dr. Cara Berg Powers offers 5 easy strategies to help people have respectful conversations on the internet.
![Picture of hand typing on laptop.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-08/tips_civil_online_1440x560.jpeg?h=b1512c13&itok=QnIa1L7s)
Common Ground Revisited
Learn about the play Common Ground Revisited, which explores various ways that key historical actors may have experienced the 1970s school desegregation in Boston and the different ways that contemporary Bostonians relate to these historical events.
![Busing Information Phone Bank; City of Boston Mayor's Office in September 1974.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-08/Busing_Information_Phone%20Bank_City_Boston_Mayors_Office_September_1974.jpeg?h=18da7b47&itok=et7KRWL8)
Why Teach Reconstruction Today?
Studying the history of Reconstruction reveals that American history is lined with recurring cycles of social progress and backlash in which everyday people have surmounted immense barriers to drive powerful change.
![Man representing the Freedman's Bureau stands between armed groups of Euro-Americans and Afro-Americans.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-09/Freedman_bureau_harpers_cartoon_FH21213.jpg?h=83f3d97f&itok=jf0SD3Wz)
Identity, Literature, and Possibility: A Conversation with Nicole Chung
Facing History's Franklin Stebbins sits down with Nicole Chung as she recounts her experience growing up navigating anti-Asian racism as a transracial adoptee of Korean descent within a white family in small-town Oregon.
![All You Can Ever Know book cover beside Nicole Chung headshot.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/nicolechung2022_large.jpeg?h=f7d9296c&itok=ZCctLuJk)
Helen Zia on the Asian American Movement
This article examines the rise of the Asian American movement through the leading voice of Helen Zia, a Chinese American author and activist working at the intersections of struggles for racial and LGBTQ justice, who helped provide a foundation for AAPI-led resistance against racism and violence.
![Asian American Dreams book cover beside Helen Zia headshot.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/HZ%20and%20AAD_Large.jpeg?h=151e6280&itok=RLlhomJ7)
LGBTQIA+ Resources from Facing History
With the commencement of Pride Month, Facing History provides a number of resources that help educators explore LGTBQIA+ histories and experiences to ensure these themes remain central beyond this celebratory month.
![Cropped LGTBQIA+ history and why it matters banner.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/UpdatedLGBTQHistoryAndWhyItMattersBannerCropped1800_605px.jpeg?h=82fc6e7e&itok=SreY0hay)
How AAPI Thinkers are Redefining Asianness
Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) thought leaders reveal their experiences with “single stories” to demonstrate what it can look like to push back against restrictive narratives that dominate American society.
![The loneliest Americans book cover.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/tlabook_large-jpg.jpeg?h=ed0b1a50&itok=HQUl1c8B)
Teaching About Anti-Asian Violence: Start with Yourself and Your Community
Most school curriculum fails to adequately address Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) histories and identities, which contributes to a widespread lack of understanding that fuels the anti-AAPI hate we see today. Facing History provides suggestions and resources for educators to better address AAPI histories so as to avoid continuing this damaging trend.
![Man holding stop Asian hate sign.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/iStock-1307873903.jpeg?h=140710cd&itok=kSZdGfCX)