Teaching Materials

By Bill Bigelow It’s impossible to walk away from the film without understanding that at the heart of the struggle over the Pentagon Papers was the exposure of government lying about the war in Vietnam. The film offers papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post a warm pat on the back for publishing the Pentagon Papers and exposing these lies. But Spielberg’s film ignores the fact that there was abundant evidence of deceit long before these newspapers decided to publish the Pentagon Papers in June of 1971.

By Bill Bigelow It’s impossible to walk away from the film without understanding that at the heart of the struggle over the Pentagon Papers was the exposure of government lying about the war in Vietnam. The film offers papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post a warm pat on the back for publishing the Pentagon Papers and exposing these lies. But Spielberg’s film ignores the fact that there was abundant evidence of deceit long before these newspapers decided to publish the Pentagon Papers in June of 1971.

Black Louisiana sugarcane workers, in cooperation with the racially integrated Knights of Labor, had gone on strike at the beginning of November in 1887 over their meager pay issued in scrip (not cash). The scrip was redeemable only at the company store where excessive prices were charged.

The Zinn Education Project is a great resource, and has been on The Best Teacher Resource Sites For Social Justice Issues list [since] it began. They just unveiled a redesign and expansion of their website, and it looks great! One of the new features I’m most excited about is a complete and searchable “Today In History” page. It’s a... Read more »

Ursula Wolfe-Rocca of the Zinn Education Project talks about her article “What Sam Wineburg Gets Wrong About Teaching Howard Zinn’s A People’s History” and shares examples of the Zinn Education Project’s curriculum and pedagogy.

By ICTMN Staff After being called “one of the most influential educators in the 20th century” by the Zinn Education Project, Sean Arce, director of the Tucson Unified School District’s banned Mexican American Studies (MAS) program, was fired. On April 2, Arce was named the recipient of the 2012 Myles Horton Education Award for Teaching People’s... Read more »

This Black History Month has been packed with controversy, with scandals and headlines revolving around blackface dominating the national conversation. But some say the singular focus on blackface distracts from the larger issues — namely, how little is known about the nation’s deeply racist history, and what is — and isn’t — taught about the black American... Read more »

The future of labor unions is tenable not only because of political efforts to suppress them, but also because of pedagogical oppression. American schools are not teaching students about labor unions and their fight against economic injustice. Ask any young American what they know about labor unions, and you will likely get the same response. This points to... Read more »

Earth frowns. With a face of green and blue, the planet’s mood is blue, too — as unblinking eyes cast a somber stare. Colored with crayons, this drawing is the schoolwork of Maya, a fifth grader from the United States. At the top sits a title: “Greenhouse Gas Effect.” Piercing Earth’s atmosphere, sharp arrows represent solar radiation,... Read more »

In a blog post published by the Huffington Post, Bill Bigelow, co-director of the Zinn Education Project, which “promotes and supports the teaching of people’s history in middle and high school classrooms across the country,” explained why many historians and indigenous communities find Columbus’s legacy so troubling. “Columbus initiated the trans-Atlantic slave trade, in early... Read more »

As Bill Bigelow, educator, curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools, and the co-director of the Zinn Education Project, wrote at Common Dreams last week. “If Indigenous peoples’ lives mattered in our society, and if Black people’s lives mattered in our society, it would be inconceivable that we would honor the father of the slave trade with... Read more »

Deborah Menkart, Teaching For Change/Zinn Education Project & Daniel Ruiz, Capital City Public Charter School, joins Thom Hartmann. On Monday — millions of Americans will stay home from work and school to celebrate how Christopher Columbus committed genocide against the Taino people and launched the Transatlantic slave trade. Unfortunately — many Americans won’t know that... Read more »

The fountainhead of the historian Bill Katz’s immersion in African-American culture was his father’s passion for jazz. Ben Katz had derived more pleasure from the music and its historical roots than from his day job as an art director for an advertising agency… Mr. Katz recalled in an interview with the Zinn Education Project (named after another... Read more »