Zinn Education Project
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The Zinn Education Project is coordinated by two non-profit organizations: Teaching for Change and Rethinking Schools.[1]
It is named after Marxist educater Howard Zinn, whose book, A People's History of the United States became a mainstay among leftist academics.
History
Excerpt from a speech by Lauren Cooper posted at the Zinn Education Project website:[2]
- Part of my work is being one of the coordinators of the Zinn Education Project. Our goal is to introduce students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of United States history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. The Zinn Education Project is a collaboration between two non-profit organizations — Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change. Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change have been long-time collaborators to improve education.
- In late 2007, both organizations received a phone call from a guy named Bill Holtzman in California. He had just watched the Zinn documentary You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. Bill was a former Boston University journalism student and had a professor who had inspired him and challenged him. His professor was Howard Zinn. Bill recalled attending Zinn’s lectures in the 1970s. He marveled at how Zinn’s “people’s history” was so much more alive and accurate than the traditional history he had received in high school.
- After earning a financially successful living in technology, he wanted to give something back, do something for the greater good. He wanted to bring Zinn’s work to a new generation of students. So he contacted Howard Zinn who put him in touch with us.
- In the Spring of 2008, with Bill’s generous donation, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change partnered again to produce and offer a unique educational packet, which included the DVD You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, a copy of A People’s History of the United States, and a teaching guide developed especially for this project called A People’s History for the Classroom. We put the word out and shipped 4,000 packets — for free — from our warehouse in D.C. to educators across the United States and the territories.
[...]
- So we created a new website at zinnedproject.org, which launched in December 2009. This website is searchable by theme, by time period, and features over 75 downloadable teaching activities — all for free.
- Last month we solicited “teaching outside the textbook” essays, detailing how teachers bring a people’s history to the classroom and the impact this has had on their students.
Howard Zinn Room dedication
From a tribute to Lauren Cooper in 2018,[3]
"For the Howard Zinn Room dedication at the Busboys and Poets in Maryland, Lauren joined the stage with Marian Wright Edelman, Beverly Daniel Tatum, Cornel West, Barbara Ehrenreich, Medea Benjamin, Bernice Reagon, Dave Zirin, and others."
Teaching for Change and Rethinking Schools
Teaching for Change lists Zinn Education Project as a "partner" (in collaboration with Rethinking Schools).[4]
Zinn Education Project Staff
Staff listed on the Zinn Education Project website as of July 6 2021:[5]
The Zinn Education Project is a collaboration between Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change staff.
- Bill Bigelow, Zinn Education Project | Co-director for Rethinking Schools: Bill Bigelow is curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools magazine and author or co-editor of several Rethinking Schools books: A People’s History for the Classroom, The Line Between Us: Teaching About the Border and Mexican Immigration, Rethinking Columbus, Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World, and Rethinking Our Classrooms — Volumes 1 and 2. Bigelow has taught high school social studies since 1978.
- Deborah Menkart, Zinn Education Project | Co-director for Teaching for Change: Deborah Menkart is executive director of Teaching for Change. She is co-editor of Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Multicultural, Anti-Racist Education and Staff Development and Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching A Resource Guide for Classrooms and Communities.
- Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, Zinn Education Project | Writer and Organizer: Ursula Wolfe-Rocca has taught high school social studies since 2000 in a public school in a suburb of Portland. Ursula is on the editorial board of Rethinking Schools magazine. She has written articles and lessons on voting rights, redlining, deportations, COINTELPRO, climate justice, Red Summer, the Cold War, and more. The era of U.S. history she finds most inspiring, humbling, and relevant is always the one she is currently unlearning, relearning, and building curriculum around.
- Jesse Hagopian, Zinn Education Project | Writer and Organizer: Jesse Hagopian is a U.S. history teacher at Garfield High School — the site of the historic boycott of the MAP test in 2013. Hagopian an associate editor for the social justice periodical Rethinking Schools and is the editor and co-editor of a number of books including More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testingand Teaching for Black Lives. He plays a lead role at the Zinn Education Project in the Teach the Black Freedom Struggle campaign. Read more at Jesse’s website, I Am An Educator.
- Mykella Palmer, Zinn Education Project | Creative Coordinator, Social Media and Design: Mykella Palmer is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park where she was a Banneker/Key Scholar. She manages the design of all things visual for Teaching for Change and the Zinn Education Project.
- Abby Saul, 2018-2018 Zinn Education Project | Instagram Coordinator: Abby Saul graduated from Swarthmore College with a major in Peace and Conflict Studies and Spanish Literature. She was a core member of Swarthmore Students for Justice in Palestine and of Swarthmore Mountain Justice, which spearheaded the college’s fossil fuel divestment campaign. She is also an organizer with IfNotNow where she coordinates projects to sustain the digital infrastructure and clear communication of the mass, decentralized movement. She has previously worked with the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, and is deeply interested in how we can build a more just through world through our telling of history.
Teach Truth Campaign Organizers
- Tamara Anderson, Zinn Education Project | Teach Truth Campaign Organizer
- Tamara Anderson is an advocate for children and teens, an anti-racist trainer, a professional artist, editor, freelance journalist, and blogger with over 20 years of experience as an educator. A former Philadelphia schoolteacher, she teaches at West Chester University in the Education Policy Department. Tamara is one of the founding steering committee members of the National Black Lives Matter Week of Action at Schools, a core member of the Racial Justice Organizing Committee, a core organizer of Philly-Black Lives Matter Week at Schools, Opt-Out Philly, and a diversity consultant for the American Association of Physics Teachers.
- Debbie Wei, Zinn Education Project | Teach Truth Campaign Organizer
- Debbie Wei is a lifelong educator and community activist. She helped found Asian Americans United in 1985 to organize low-income and working-class Asian Americans; its victories include winning reform in the School District of Philadelphia for immigrant students and families, improving language access across the city, tenant and worker organizing, and stopping the construction of a stadium and a casino in Philadelphia Chinatown. She was a founder and founding principal of the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School in Philadelphia, which serves as a model for best practices in serving immigrant and refugee families. She has worked with a number of organizations which include the American Friends Service Committee, where she worked on lifting the voices of the Pacific region in US national discourse, and the Philadelphia Folklore Project, where she worked on supporting vernacular cultural forms as acts of resistance. In addition to Philadelphia, she has worked in schools in Hong Kong, New Delhi, India, and Los Angeles, California.
Former Staff and Project Fellows
- Lauren Cooper | Project Coordinator: Lauren Cooper helped launched [sic] the Zinn Education Project (ZEP) as the project coordinator, helping to shape its development in its first 10 years. In July 2018, Lauren successfully completed a 12-month website rebuild and launched, coordinating with the development company and key stakeholders. Currently, Lauren is the project manager for the Colored Conventions Project, a student-faculty created project that publishes documents and other archival material from the 1800s when African Americans — some freed, some enslaved — were organizing at conventions across the country for social and political change.
- Adam Sanchez, Zinn Education Project | Organizer and Curriculum Writer, 2017-2018: Adam Sanchez is a social studies teacher and community organizer who is deeply committed to social justice inside and outside the classroom. In addition to his work for the Zinn Education Project, Adam teaches at Harvest Collegiate High School in New York City and serves on the editorial board of Rethinking Schools. He is also a contributor to the books Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation and 101 Changemakers: Rebels and Radicals Who Changed U.S. History.
- Nqobile Mthethwa, 2017-2019 Zinn Education Project | Research Fellow: As an undergrad, Nqobile Mthethwa worked as a research/project assistant for three years writing, organizing, and archiving data pertaining to the Carter G. Woodson Institute’s digital exhibition “The Movement in the Archive,” created and supervised by Professor Deborah McDowell. She has worked on open source web-publishing platforms for the display of library, museum, archives, and academic collections and exhibitions. She presented on Julian Bond’s legacy as a historian on a panel at the Julian Bond Symposium in October 2016. She also helped create and teach a course titled “Introduction to Citizenship & Activism A Critical Examination of Jefferson’s University” for four semesters with Professor Walter Heinecke. Her research interests include organizational structure of grassroots movements, federal legislation of the Civil Rights era, and documenting untold historical narratives. She graduated from the University of Virginia in May 2017 with a B.A. in Political Science.
- Alison Kysia, 2013-2014 Zinn Education Project | Fellow: Alison Kysia has taught history at Northern Virginia Community College for six years. She has been an educator for more than 15 years.
- Katy Swalwell, 2013-2014 Zinn Education Project | Fellow: Katy Swalwell is an assistant professor of education at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of Educating Activist Allies: Social Justice Pedagogy with the Suburban and Urban Elite (Routledge, 2013).
- Katie Orr, Zinn Education Project | Communications Manager: Katie Orr is a public historian and history communicator who grew up in the Harpers Ferry area west of Washington, D.C. She earned a B.A. in journalism from Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and then a Masters in U.S. History from American University in D.C. Before joining the Zinn Education Project, Katie was a National Park Service historian working to promote inclusive K-12 education at national parks and expanding the scope of narratives told by the National Park Service to emphasize underrepresented and marginalized perspectives. She is interested in national conversations about identity and geography, education policy, and the healing power of relevancy in history.
Donors
Donors listed on the Zinn Education Project website as of July 6 2021:[6]