Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for Educational Justice

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
In this activity, students take on the role of activist-experts to improve upon a Congressional bill for reparations for Black people. They talk back to Congress’ flimsy legislation and design a more robust alternative.

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
Students explore three documents produced in the wake of three major episodes of racial violence (1919, 1967, 2014) to understand the long trajectory of police violence in Black communities.

Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez and Jesse Hagopian. Rethinking Schools. 33 pages.
A mixer lesson introduces students to the pivotal history of the Black Panthers.

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 13 pages.
A role play on the origins of the modern high school allows students to question aspects of schooling they often take for granted, such as tracking (“ability grouping”) and standardized testing — and to reflect on the racial biases of these so-called reforms.

Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools. 24 pages.
A series of role plays that explore the history and evolution of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, including freedom rides and voter registration.

Teaching Guide. Edited by Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian, Wayne Au. 2018. Rethinking Schools. 368 pages.
Essays, teaching activities, role plays, poems, and artwork, designed to illuminate the movement for Black students’ lives, the school-to-prison-pipeline, Black history, gentrification, intersectional Black identities, and more.

Barbara Johns (16-years-old) led her classmates in a strike to protest the substandard conditions in Prince Edward County, Virginia.

After decades of organizing and strategic efforts by parents, teachers, lawyers, and more — the U.S. Supreme Court issued the unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education on school segregation.

Rather than desegregate, the Prince Edward County, Virginia Board of Supervisors refused to appropriate money from the County School Board to the public schools.

Teachers and administrators from the Florida Education Association (FEA) walked out in what is reported to be the first statewide teachers’ strike.

Teachers went on strike for seven months, against community control, after Black and Puerto Rican parents organized for better schools for their children in New York City.