How Do Rules & Traditions Shape Communities?
Students create classroom rules through a group activity, and learn the relationship between customs and laws as it relates to a safe learning environment.
How Do Others Define Your Identity?
Students draw on a contemporary parable to explore how identity is formed by our own perception as well as other people's perception of us.
What is Community?
Students answer the question, "What is a community?" by writing their own definition of the word and identifying what characteristics make their classroom a community.
Exploring Contemporary Experiences of Policing and Racial Injustice
In this mini-lesson, students use their head, heart, and conscience to engage with six sources that reflect a range of experiences with policing.
The 1968 East LA School Walkouts
Students learn about education, identity, and activism through an exploration of the East Los Angeles school walkouts, when thousands of students protested unequal educational opportunities for Mexican American students.
January 6th
The January 6th investigation has deepened widespread concerns about rising threats of fascism, racism, white nationalism, and other phenomena that undermine justice for all. But in analyses that focus primarily on the role of white nationalism fomented within media echo chambers, for example, commentators have overlooked what may be a more pervasive parallel phenomenon: the widespread crisis of faith in U.S. media and institutions at large.
California Grape Workers’ Strike: 1965–66
Students explore the first year of the Delano grape strike, when grape workers in California's San Joaquin Valley went on strike to demand higher wages and better work conditions.
Teaching about the January 6 Insurrection and its Impact on US Democracy
The January 6 insurrection remains important to understand and discuss, as well as the larger questions it raises about the state of US democracy. A recent poll found that 52% of young people between 18 and 29 believe that either US democracy is "in trouble" or "failed," while only 7% agree that it is "healthy," further highlighting the need to teach students about democratic institutions.
Citizen Power Makes Democracy Work
Students explore citizenship, power, and responsibility using the work of civic entrepreneur Eric Liu.
Defining Democracy
Students brainstorm different definitions of democracy and consider democracy's relationship to their own communities and cultures.
Free Press Makes Democracy Work
Students explore the importance of a free press to democracy through recorded conversations with journalists from the United States and South Africa.