Students: The Original American Revolutionaries Stop. Hey, what’s that sound Everybody look what’s going down Young people speaking their minds Getting so much resistance from behind… The lunch counter sit-ins The Children’s March in Birmingham Freedom Summer Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman The Little Rock 9 Kent State Jackson State DACA & Immigration walkouts […]
Cari Zall
Cari Zall has been a Social Sciences educator for over 12 years, in both brick & mortar and online environments. She currently works as the Curriculum and Instructional Support Manager for an online high school dropout recovery program, and is the Assignment Editor and a writer for The Educator’s Room, an online education magazine. Cari is certified in Gamification and has worked on several projects incorporating Gamification into online and traditional education environments. Her areas of expertise include Gamification and Student Resilience & Motivation; Conflict Resolution & Collaboration, and social justice education. Prior to her teaching career, Cari worked for 15 years in civil litigation and as a human rights activist in Northern Ireland and Washington, DC. She holds a BA in Conflict Analysis & Resolution, an Masters in Teaching, and an MA in Political Science. Cari is a James Madison Fellow, and is the author of the book, How to Finish the Test When Your Pencil Breaks: A Teacher Faces Layoff, Unemployment and a Career Shift. You can finder her on twitter at @teachacari.
The Case of the Shrinking Education Department
This year has been challenging for teachers for a myriad of reasons. Research shows stress, PTSD, and mental/emotional health issues are running rampant for teachers around the country. Faced with the Trump Effect, many teachers are not only faced with the stresses and fears of students, but with their own fears about the future of […]
We Must Teach the Worst of our History; Not Glorify It
As I write this, it’s not yet 24 hours since Charlottesville, Virginia erupted in violence at the hands of white supremacists. What happened there, how we respond to it, and what must happen next is an essential conversation for all Americans, but especially educators. Those white Americans whose reaction was to claim “this isn’t America!” […]
Transgender Student Rights are Human Rights
Late Wednesday night, February 22, 2017, around 9pm EST, the Trump Administration released its new directive that rescinded the federal protections for transgender students in public schools and universities. Policy until this point, passed in the Obama administration, directed there be protection for all students equally, to ensure they had access to the bathrooms, locker […]
Why “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” Still Matters in 2017
In April 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King and several other Civil Rights activists, including the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, were arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, in the midst of a massive non-violent protest campaign against that city’s segregation practices. Dr. King ultimately spent 10 days in jail that April, and while he was there, he penned one […]
No Right to an Education: Detroit Schools and the Secretary of Education Nominee
In September 2016, seven students in the Detroit school system filed a lawsuit against Michigan governor Rick Snyder and other state education officials. In their complaint, the students allege that over the last several decades, there has been systematic disinvestment in and “deliberate indifference” to the Detroit schools, which has fundamentally denied Detroit school children […]
I Think I Failed You – A Civics Teacher’s Letter to her Former Students
Dear Former Students, I have started this letter a thousand times in my head in the last week. It’s hard to get past the first line: I fear I may have failed you as your Civics teacher. You have probably known me for many years as the one person in your life with unfailing trust […]
Transforming the ‘Trump Effect’ in Schools
As early as March of this year, teachers were reporting a significant increase in anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and bullying behavior in their students since the start of the 2016 presidential race in what has become known as the “Trump Effect.” The Southern Poverty Law Center tries to get some data on these anecdotal reports, and ran […]