Bring People’s History Lessons to 100,000 Teachers

We are encouraged that in this 10th anniversary year of the Zinn Education Project, more than 83,000 teachers have signed up to access people’s history lessons from our website. Each day more than two dozen teachers sign up from all over the United States.

Most heartwarming are the stories teachers share about using Zinn Education Project lessons with their students. For example, Jessica Lovaas, a high school social studies teacher in New York City, wrote about using the lesson Reconstructing the South from our Teach Reconstruction campaign:

After coming up with their own proposals for land distribution through the role play, students were eager to predict and then “find out” what actually happened, gobbling up the Zinn Education Project (ZEP) readings following the role play with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Even long after the role play lesson ended, students kept returning to the deeper debates of justice and retribution, radicalism and realism, equity and equality that animated the role play.

Running ZEP’s role play at the beginning of the Reconstruction unit was an incredible experience — the absolute highlight of my teaching career to date. I only hope I can frame future units in such a way that propels students to grapple with complex, unanswerable questions that have inspired centuries of struggles for justice.

The world would be a better place if many more students engaged in debates of justice and retribution, radicalism and realism, equity and equality. Please help us reach our goal of signing up 100,000 teachers to bring people’s history to the classroom in this new school year. Make a donation today.