Teaching for Change

By Stan Karp

Teachers plunging into a new year should treat themselves to a back-to-chool visit to the revamped Teaching for Change website. (www.teachingforchange.org) The Teaching for Change catalog is probably the single best source of teaching resources and curriculum materials on issues of social justice - and all catalog items can be purchased through the site.

Teaching for Change recently redesigned their website to improve its appearance and ease of use. Teachers will find K-12 materials for nearly all subject areas from art to language to math and science. Curriculum materials ranging from gender issues to global studies, from media literacy to violence prevention are generally available at more reasonable prices than other commercial vendors offer. Materials to support innovative teaching practices, like alternative assessment and effective multicultural instruction are also available. Whether you want an "alternative alphabet" poster for your bulletin board, a curriculum to help young boys stand up to negative influences in school and society, or a CD-Rom on the history of Asian Americans, you'll find it at Teaching for Change. The variety and classroom utility of the materials is outstanding.

The Teaching for Change project grew out of a history of teacher activism. In the 1980s, committees of teachers opposed to U.S. intervention in Central America came together to form the Network of Educators' Committees on Central America. The committees coordinated tours to and from Central America, raised funds for Central American schools and teachers' unions, established sister-schools and sister-unions, offered courses and workshops, and developed curricula. Eventually the network broadened its concerns to become the Network of Educators on the Americas (NECA), but retained its focus on classrooms. In 1994 it established the Teaching for Change catalog which now reaches more than 40,000 teachers. Last Spring, NECA officially changed its title to Teaching for Change: Building social justice, starting in the classroom.

This combination of activist and educational concerns is reflected on the Web site. A "Behind the News" link takes teachers to an excellent collection of teaching materials on the events of Sept. 11. Other links offer analysis and resources for up-to-the-minute crises like the drive towards a new U.S. war in Iraq.

The site also directs users to relevant education conferences, like an upcoming session of the National Association for Multicultural Education, and to school change efforts in the Washington, D.C. area.

Each school year teachers bring new hope and challenges into the classroom. The Teaching for Change site has the kind of resources needed to turn them into success stories. Do yourself and your students a favor by checking it out.

Fall 2002