In April 2018, somebody painted over a mural in the "Julia de Burgos" public school's cafeteria, turning the wall into a blank, off-white slate. The mural's erasure symbolically encapsulates a combination of forces that are behind the radical transformation of public schools and colleges in Puerto Rico: the colonial relationship the…

The climate crisis is the defining human and child's rights challenge of this generation, and is already having a devastating impact on the well-being of children globally. Understanding where and how children are uniquely vulnerable to this crisis is crucial in responding to it. The Children's Climate Risk Index provides the first comprehensive…

Although we often look to schools to solve complex social problems, many educators are not ready to address the structural racism behind many contemporary conflicts. Pedro Noguera and Julio Angel Alicia present a brief history of the socioeconomic forces that drove school closures and gentrification in Chicago, the remaking of New Orleans after…

In this article, we bring attention to absences and deficit assumptions that continue to circulate in relation to environmental education for young Black children in North America. We focus our attention on tracing some of the ways in which racial innocence works to exclude and limit possibilities for young Black children's learning. Our analysis…

AmeriCorps engages more than 80,000 men and women in intensive service each year at more than 21,000 locations including nonprofits, schools, public agencies, and community and faith-based groups across the country. AmeriCorps members help communities tackle pressing problems while mobilizing millions of volunteers for the organizations they…

In sub-Saharan Africa, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have far-reaching consequences for 550 million children under the age of 18. This UNICEF Child Alert examines how the disease and measures put in place to contain it are impacting the lives of children across the region, exacerbating existing threats like conflict, climate change and…

In this essay, Paul Vallas--education reform expert and key advisor to the government of Haiti in developing its national education plan--discusses his plan for Haiti. The paper explores the successes and challenges of education reform in Haiti, before and after the earthquake that devastated the nation in 2010. The essay describes the…

Haitians and their descendants all over the world are grieving and mourning the terrible disaster and loss of lives that befell their homeland. For a brief moment this winter, the whole world focused on Haiti. Educators at all levels--elementary, middle school, high school, and college--can take this opportunity to teach about Haiti: its past,…

The reopening of the New Orleans Superdome after Hurricane Katrina on Monday Night Football dramatized problematic rhetorical, visual, and spatial norms of purification rituals bound up in what Burke calls the paradox of purity. Hurricane Katrina was significant as a visually traumatic event in large part because it signified the ghetto as a…

It is not easy to learn the "real story" of Haiti; mainstream historical accounts are often told through a distorted lens of racism and colonial exploitation. Even today, in the aftermath of the quake, Haiti's poverty is blamed on poor leadership, a lack of democratic traditions, and isolation due to language. Commentators describe it as…

After a disaster, or in the midst of a conflict, the news that finds its way into people's homes has a uniquely powerful effect on their psyche. Vulnerable people are caught in destructive forces beyond their control. The scenes people see are post-apocalyptic. The stories are gripping, spanning themes of luck, loss, hope, love, and wild fear,…

It was heartwarming to see so many states, school districts, and communities throughout the United States open their doors to the children of Katrina. This response was a graphic portrayal of the spirit of volunteerism, the value of the more able assisting the less fortunate, and the sense of altruism that surfaces when major crises occur.…

Many people are invisible within and to the wider society. An adjunct aspect of that situation is that the marginalized are also invisible to one another. This "mutual invisibility" undermines the possibilities of cooperative transcommunal alliances. It is Cedric Sunray's ("Similarities between Tribes and the Ninth Ward,"…

The emotional trauma of recent events may never go away. A million people were uprooted by Hurricane Katrina, including an estimated 372,000 children of school age. Three weeks later, Hurricane Rita slammed into the Texas-Louisiana coastline, forcing thousands more to evacuate. Acute symptoms of trauma range from confusion, nightmares, and…

Teaching children who are victims of Katrina is not a multicultural education issue per se. However, there are some intersections between the victims of Katrina and the educational responses to them, and some of the primary constituent groups and issues that multicultural education represents and intends to serve. These are children of color and…