Why did religious pluralism flourish in the United States? Because George Washington and other Founders worked hard to nurture it. In the early days of the United States, religious minorities had several concerns: Would they be allowed to practice their religion? Would they be allowed to build houses of worship? Would they have the same political…

Policies that encourage police presence at schools, harsh tactics including physical restraint, and automatic punishments that result in suspensions and out-of-class time are huge contributors to the school-to-prison pipeline, but the problem is more complex than that. The school-to-prison pipeline starts (or is best avoided) in the classroom.…

Speak Truth To Power consists of 17 teacher-developed lessons based on the stories of rights advocates from all over the world. The lessons were created for sixth-through 12th-grade students, and have come to New York schools thanks to the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights and the New York State United Teachers union. Speak…

LGBT educators enjoy more openness and acceptance than ever before. But their gains have been fragile and uneven. And many still feel it's safest to teach from the closet. In conversations with LGBT educators across the nation, it is clear that many still face bigotry and difficulty. But there are also many heartening stories of acceptance,…

Lauren Gallant is committed to making social justice issues part of her U.S. history teaching. An avid user of Teaching Tolerance materials, she's always in search of tools "that help illuminate the subject matter and the human condition." But the Simi Valley High School, Calif., teacher has a typical challenge: There is little time for…

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists tracks the presence of Latinos in the news. It reports that news stories in which Latinos are the subject most often concern immigration, poverty and crime. And Hollywood does no better in reflecting the broad reality of Latino life. Latino characters are often portrayed as poor and uneducated. In…

This article presents a retelling of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff." The story puts a cooperative twist on the traditional Norwegian tale.

This article presents a story from Hawaii about how it is better to share and cooperate than to squabble and fight. The story is about two large mynah birds fighting for a ripe mango hanging from a tree. In the midst of their battle, a mother and father sparrow pecked small pieces from the mango to feed their large hungry family. Flying back and…

When the author overheard her colleagues one day discussing teachers who don't follow state mandates--singing the benefits of enforced curriculum mapping to ensure every teacher is on the same page, teaching the same topic, at the same time--she didn't know they were talking about her. It wasn't until a colleague later cautioned that she was not…

Bees are a vital part of the ecology. People of conscience are a vital part of society. In Nina Frenkel's "One World" poster, the bee is also a metaphor for the role of the individual in a diverse society. This article presents a lesson that uses Frenkel's poster to help early-grades students connect these ideas and explore both the importance of…

For educators, the fight for social justice does not necessarily begin with a Third World cause in another hemisphere but begins instead with the children they serve to empower every day in their classrooms. The author teaches because he believes that each person, at his or her core, carries a sense of justice, however shrouded. That sense of…

When students take action, they create change that extends far beyond the classroom. In this article, the author, who was a former teacher from Crystal City, Texas, remembers the student walkout that helped launch the Latino civil rights movement 40 years ago. The Crystal City student walkout remains a high point in the history of student activism…

Barack Obama's ascension to the highest elected office in America's land is surely a milestone in the American narrative. The events of Nov. 4, 2008, and Jan. 20, 2009, are marks of America's collective progress. In the course of the long campaign season, however, there is another date that also should be etched into American textbooks: March 18,…

What do actors have in common with bigots, bullies and their victims? They play the same script over and over. This article discusses how social justice theater can teach students to take the story into their own hands. It describes Forum Theater, a dramatic method that sets up tightly scripted dramas of power and difference, then encourages the…

Twitter, Google Docs and their cousins shrink the spaces between cultures even as they expand the reach of a typical classroom. How can a teacher use them to promote social justice? In Sarah Brown Wessling's English class, students are about to give Little Red Riding Hood a makeover. For weeks, her students at Johnston High School in Johnston,…