Teaching for Change is a non-profit organization founded in 1989 and based in Washington, D.C., with the motto of "building social justice, starting in the classroom." This organization uses publications, professional development, and parent organizing programs to accomplish this goal.

Programming

Teaching for Change coordinates a variety of programs that aim to encourage teachers, students, and parents to build a more equitable, multicultural society through education.

Tellin' Stories

The Tellin' Stories program is a process for building parent engagement in schools. This program uses a bottom-up approach, encouraging parents to define what their roles will be. The training plan has four stages: * Community Building: families meet each other and learn about their schools; * Information Gathering: parents analyze the school climate, the facilities, and the quality of teaching and learning at their school; * Identifying and Prioritizing Concerns: parents investigate concerns with schools (using Right Question Project methodology); and * Taking Action: parents determine the action required to achieve desired results and work collectively to promote those actions.

Teaching for Change Bookstore

Teaching for Change founded and operated an independent, non-profit bookstore located inside

Busboys and Poets Busboys and Poets is a full-service restaurant, bar, bookstore, coffee shop, and events venue in Washington, D.C., founded in 2005 by Andy Shallal. The original Busboys and Poets is located at 14th & V in the U Street Corridor. There are now sev ...

14th and V Streets location for ten years.Todd Kliman
Rainbow Room: The Busboys and Poets Controversy
''Washingtonian'', December 1, 2005. The bookstore hosted author events and provided selections of books focusing on progressive politics, multicultural lessons for pre K-12, and

people's history A people's history, or history from below, is a type of historical narrative which attempts to account for historical events from the perspective of common people rather than leaders. There is an emphasis on disenfranchised, the oppressed, the po ...

. Teaching for Change helped bring noted authors to host readings, discussions and book signings, including

Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was aw ...

Howard Zinn Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political scien ...

Cornel West Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, actor, and public intellectual. The grandson of a Baptist minister, West focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society and ...

, Ronald Takaki,

Michelle Alexander Michelle Alexander (born October 7, 1967) is an American writer and civil rights activist. She is best known for her 2010 book '' The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness''. Since 2018, she has been an opinion columnist ...

Melissa Harris-Perry Melissa Victoria Harris-Perry (born October 2, 1973), formerly known as Melissa Victoria Harris-Lacewell, is an American writer, professor, television host, and political commentator with a focus on African-American politics. Harris-Perry hoste ...

John Sayles John Thomas Sayles (born September 28, 1950) is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, for ''Passion Fish'' (1992) and ''L ...

Nikki Giovanni Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. (born June 7, 1943) is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world's most well-known African-American poets,Jane M. Barstow, Yolanda Williams Page (eds)"Nikki Giovanni" ''E ...

Bob Moses Robert Moses (1888–1981) was an American city planner. Robert Moses may also refer to: * Bob Moses (activist) (1935–2021), American educator and civil rights activist * Bob Moses, American football player in the 1962 Cotton Bowl Classic * Bob M ...

, Juan Gonzalez,

Ralph Nader Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes. The son of Lebanese immigrants to the Un ...

Taylor Branch Taylor Branch (born January 14, 1947) is an American author and historian who wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning trilogy chronicling the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and much of the history of the American civil rights movement. The final volume o ...

Dave Zirin Dave Zirin, born 1974, is an American political sportswriter. He is the sports editor for ''The Nation'', a weekly progressive magazine dedicated to politics and culture, and writes a blog named ''Edge of Sports: the weekly sports column by Da ...

Naomi Klein Naomi A. Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses, support of ecofeminism, organized labour, left-wing politics and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism, ecofascism ...

Tariq Ali Tariq Ali (; born 21 October 1943) is a Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, historian, filmmaker, and public intellectual. He is a member of the editorial committee of the ''New Left Review'' and ''Sin Permiso'', and con ...

Clarence Lusane Clarence Lusane (born 1953) is an American author, activist, lecturer and freelance journalist. His most recent major work is his book '' The Black History of the White House''. Background Clarence Lusane received his Ph.D. in political science ...

Marita Golden Marita Golden (born April 28, 1950) is an American novelist, nonfiction writer, professor, and co-founder of the Hurston/Wright Foundation, a national organization that serves as a resource center for African-American writers. Background and caree ...

Charles E. Cobb Jr. Charles E. "Charlie" Cobb Jr. (born June 23, 1943) is a journalist, professor, and former activist with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Along with several veterans of SNCC, Cobb established and operated the African-America ...

Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007. He was the U.S. representative for the state's at-large congressional district from 1991 to 2007 ...

Edwidge Danticat Edwidge Danticat (; born January 19, 1969) is a Haitian-American novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, ''Breath, Eyes, Memory'', was published in 1994 and went on to become an Oprah's Book Club selection. Danticat has since written or ...

Judy Richardson Judy Richardson is an American documentary filmmaker and civil rights activist. She was Distinguished Visiting Lecturer of Africana Studies at Brown University. Early life Richardson was born in Tarrytown, New York. She attended Washington Irvi ...

, and

Junot Diaz Junot is a French name that may refer to the following notable people: ;Given name *Junot Díaz (born 1968), Dominican American ;Surname *Laure Junot, Duchess of Abrantes (1784–1838), French writer *Jean-Andoche Junot, 1st Duke of Abrantès (1771 ...

. Teaching for Change closed its bookstore in April 2015 and shared its recommendations for books online.

Zinn Education Project

Teaching for Change co-founded the Zinn Education Project with Rethinking Schools in 2008 to provide teachers with free resources to help teach a

including free downloadable lesson plans as a companion to

's ''

A People's History of the United States '' A People's History of the United States'' is a 1980 nonfiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn. In the book, Zinn presented what he considered to be a different side of history from the more traditional "funda ...

'' and other classroom resources for educators around the country.

Civil Rights Teaching

As of 2006, the state of Mississippi "passed the Civil Rights/Human Rights Education in the Mississippi Public Schools Curriculum bill," which mandated "the integration of civil rights and human rights" topics into the curriculum of the K-12 schools under its purview. Accordingly, Teaching for Change worked with the

McComb School District The McComb School District is a public school district based in McComb, Mississippi, US. Schools *McComb High School **1982-1983 National Blue Ribbon School *Denman Junior High School *Higgins Middle School *Kennedy Elementary School *Otken El ...

and the

Mississippi Department of Education The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) is the state education agency of Mississippi. It is headquartered in the former Central High School Building at 359 North West Street in Jackson. The State Superintendent of Education is Carey M. Wr ...

for ten years to incorporate lessons on the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

and

labor history Labor history or labour history is a sub-discipline of social history which specialises on the history of the working classes and the labor movement. Labor historians may concern themselves with issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and other fac ...

in the curriculum. The stated intention was to help schools "end a decades-old culture of silence" on difficult historical events in the region. McComb Legacies, an after-school and summer enrichment program, grew out of the partnership between Teaching for Change and the McComb School District. As part of McComb Legacies, high school students work as historians to uncover the history of the voting rights struggle in McComb and

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

. In the spring of 2013, two McComb student projects made it to the national level of the

National History Day National History Day is a non-profit organization based in College Park, Maryland that operates an annual project-based contest for students in grades 6-12. It has affiliates in all fifty states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, American Sam ...

competition. ''The Voting Rights Struggle'', a documentary film created by McComb students, tells the story of the first

SNCC The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segrega ...

voter registration drive, which was located in McComb. The film can now be seen at the African American Civil War Museum in Washington, DC.

D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice

In 2017, Teaching for Change launched DC Area Educators for Social Justice, a community of mutual support for educators to collaborate on curriculum, professional learning, and activism. Beginning in 2018, DC Area Educators for Social Justice has led the yearly D.C. Area Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. Beginning in 2015, DC Area Educators brought together local social justice teachers to form a graduate level writing group in a program titled Stories from our Classroom. Some of these stories went onto be published in ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'', ''

Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

'', ''

Edutopia Edutopia is a website published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF). Founded in 1991 by filmmaker George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star ...

,'' and other well-known periodicals.

Teaching Central America

In 2017, Teaching for Change launched the website Teaching Central America. The website offers free downloadable lessons, biographies, poetry, and prose from Central American writers such as

Roque Dalton Roque is an American variant of croquet played on a hard, smooth surface. Popular in the first quarter of the 20th century and billed "the Game of the Century" by its enthusiasts, it was an Olympic sport in the 1904 Summer Games, replacing cr ...

Rigoberta Menchú Rigoberta Menchú Tum (; born 9 January 1959) is a K'iche' Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the rights of Guatemala's Indigenous peoples during and after t ...

Claribel Alegría Clara Isabel Alegría Vides (May 12, 1924 – January 25, 2018), also known by her pseudonym Claribel Alegría, was a Nicaraguan-Salvadoran poet, essayist, novelist, and journalist who was a major voice in the literature of contemporary Central Am ...

, and

Ernesto Cardenal Ernesto Cardenal Martínez (20 January 1925 – 1 March 2020) was a Nicaraguan Catholic priest, poet, and politician. He was a liberation theologian and the founder of the primitivist art community in the Solentiname Islands, where he lived for m ...

Social Justice Books

Teaching for Change launched the Social Justice Books website in 2017. The Social Justice Book site contains more than 60 carefully selected lists of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators, along with dozens of book reviews coordinated by the See What We See (SWWS) coalition.

History

In the 1980s, with a growing Central American population and U.S. involvement in the region, 11 committees of educators and community leaders formed across the country to assess how to address the needs of Central American students and increase public awareness about U.S. foreign policy in

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

. These committees convened in Los Angeles to form a national organization, the Network of Educator’s Committees on Central America (NECCA) that became incorporated in December 1989History
Teaching for Change website, 2017 Through the early 90s they produced teaching resources on

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...

and

El Salvador El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...

and hosted teacher workshops around the country based on the book ''Rethinking Columbus''. In 1993, NECCA won the Humanities award from the DC Humanities Council and in 1994 they launched a mail order catalog for progressive teaching resources. As the organization expanded its focus, Network of Educator's Committees on Central America changed its name to Teaching for Change. Through the 1990s, Teaching for Change organized seminars for educators on social justice education topics and published their own teaching guide, ''Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development''. In 1999, Teaching for Change hosted a seminar for educators in the DC area focusing on "putting the movement back into Civil Rights" history teaching at

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...

. That seminar led to the production of a teaching guide with the same name, in collaboration with the Poverty and Race Resource Action Council (PRRAC). ''Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching'' won the Philip C. Chinn book of the year award and Teaching for Change won the National Association for Multicultural Education Organization of the Year in 2004. In 2005, Teaching for Change was invited by former board member and entrepreneur

Andy Shallal Anas "Andy" Shallal ( ar, أنس شلال) (born March 21, 1955) is an Iraqi-American artist, activist, philanthropist and entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder and CEO of the Washington, D.C., area, restaurant, bookstore, and performan ...

to open a bookstore in

. In 2008, in partnership with Rethinking Schools, they launched the Zinn Education Project to provide middle and high school teachers with free access to lessons for

’s ''

'' and other people's history resources. In 2014, Teaching for Change was attacked by

Rush Limbaugh Rush Hudson Limbaugh III ( ; January 12, 1951 – February 17, 2021) was an American conservative political commentator who was the host of '' The Rush Limbaugh Show'', which first aired in 1984 and was nationally syndicated on AM and FM r ...

who said of the organization, "it’s racist, it’s bigoted." Teaching for Change launched the Teach the Beat initiative to bring

go-go Go-go is a music subgenre, subgenre of funk music with an emphasis on specific rhythmic patterns, and live audience Call and response (music), call and response. Go-go was originated by African-American musicians in the Washington, D.C. area du ...

artists to D.C. classrooms and was among the national recipients of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Family Engagement Awards in 2014. In 2019, the Zinn Foundation Project achieved the milestone of 100,000 registered teachers in the program. Also, during Latinx Heritage Month, Teaching for Change began its first yearly "Teach Central America Week" to strengthen students' knowledge of Central America.

References

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