Colten Fox

Three years ago I joined a Teaching for Black Lives study group and have been using the Stories from the Climate Crisis: A Mixer lesson and Reconstructing the South: A Role Play ever since. The lessons are engaging and have my students consider perspectives that they would not usually be exposed to. I was even able to take the Climate Change Mixer and use it to create similar assignments for other subjects or lessons that the students liked. In my experience, the Zinn Education Project encourages students to think and problem solve based on their own ability to reason. These valuable skills can carry beyond the classroom and help make for responsible citizens out in the world.

Furthermore, students have enjoyed reading Sugar, Half American, and Paradise on Fire. These stories add visibility and diversity to the classroom — something that is often hard to come by and hard to afford as a public education teacher. Anything and everything that the Zinn Education Project shares with a classroom is a vital component of that class going forward.