In the News

For the past two years, teachers around the country have rallied at historic sites to speak out against anti-history education bills. On June 10, 2023, teachers are rallying again for the Teach Truth Day of Action, co-organized by The Zinn Education Project, Black Lives Matter at School and The African American Policy Forum. You can join the resistance to teach the truth. Teachers, students, parents and community members are invited to rally across the country and pledge to #TeachTruth and defend LGBTQ+ rights. Let this demonstration of solidarity, mobilization and activism be our history.

History is a human right. The struggle for social justice is many things. However, especially in this era, it must include the recognition of the right to learn honest history — particularly about social movements that have challenged injustice. Without truthful accounts of history and the truthful transmission of that history to the next generations, young people are robbed of the first condition of a democratic society — access to the knowledge needed to shape the future. You, too, can join the #TeachTruth National Day of Action on June 10. Find an event near you. Or, organize your own. An increasing number of communities refuse to repeat the scapegoating and paranoia of the McCarthy era; we won’t let them use race, gender, and sexuality to divide and conquer us.

Three years ago, NEA and the Zinn Education Project launched the first national day of action to teach the truth, and another one is on the horizon: Teach Truth Day on June 10, when educators pledge to teach truthfully about U.S. history, defend LGBTQ+ rights, and speak out against anti-history education bills, banned books, and more. NEA leaders firmly and unequivocally support these actions and urge the union's 3-million members to organize, participate, and engage to help raise awareness about the danger of these attacks on public education.

“There is a divide between places where teachers have the leeway to teach the truth about history and culture, and places where teachers can’t do this even if they want to,” said Wayne Au, a professor of education at the University of Washington-Bothell and an editor at Rethinking Schools, a 37-year-old quarterly publication devoted to promoting social justice. “People have been physically threatened, so there is not always the space for teachers to do anti-racist education. But when states pass legislation that supports multicultural learning, it gives teachers room to create curricula. It also gives them the official backing to do work they know is for the common good. Of course, developing curricula can be complicated and state-approved materials are often safer than we want, but they’re a start.”

Thanks to organizations like the Zinn Education Project, a national organization that has, since 2008, offered free, historically accurate, and factual downloadable lessons and articles to teachers, educators are including climate topic awareness in their lessons, regardless of what subject they teach. Attempts by powerful corporations to buy the silence of students and teachers, along with powering climate denialism, are part of why the Zinn Education Project and educators and countless others push for climate literacy.

During this episode of Why Change? co-host Karla meets with Tamara Anderson who moderated an event recently — in partnership with the Teaching Artists Guild, Zinn Education Project, Black Lives Matter at School, and Creative Generation — titled, “A Day of Purpose: Decolonizing Arts Education with Black Lives Matter at School.” This event was a professional development opportunity for teaching artists that focuses on the ongoing activations and reflections from BLM at School’s Year of Purpose, which aims to uplift Black students and undo institutional racism.

Book bans are surging in the U.S., according to a recent report by the American Library Association. A record 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship in 2022, the ALA reported. Even as these laws proliferate, educators and librarians are finding creative ways around them. Jesse Hagopian, a high school teacher in Seattle and organizer with the Zinn Education Project, believes the wave of legislation that “imposes gag orders on teachers” is a backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement and the increasing numbers of people embracing their transgender identities.

Teachers are getting a chance to participate in a workshop aimed at uncovering what the Zinn Education Project calls “the hidden, bottom-up history” of the Reconstruction era. The workshop is geared toward middle and high school educators, and participants will engage in a series of classroom-friendly activities exploring the neglected history of the Reconstruction period and asking how the unfulfilled promises of Reconstruction might shape politics and American history education moving forward.