Four Resources for Women's History Month

Posted by Julia Rappaport on March 4, 2015

March is Women's History Month in the United States and United Kingdom—Canada celebrates in October—while International Women's Day is celebrated globally on March 8. Introduce your students to everyday women, female politicians, and upstanders big and small who have made contributions to world history with these four resources.
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Topics: Classrooms, Civil Rights Movement, Professional Development, Teaching Strategies, Facing History Resources, Holocaust, Memoir, Teaching Resources, Video, History

Coming to Terms with a Personal History

Posted by Marti Tippens Murphy on March 1, 2015

A book recently came into my possession that has been tossed around in my family like a hot potato for several generations.


Entitled Religion and Slavery: A Vindication of Southern Churches, the book's author was James McNeilly, a Presbyterian minister and confederate veteran from Nashville, Tennessee. Inside the front cover is an inscription from the author to my great-great-great-grandmother.

"To Corinne Lawrence: A tried and true friend of many years—and a devoted lover of the Old South which I have tried to vindicate."

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Topics: Books, Reconstruction, Memory, Facing History Resources, Memphis, Identity, Teaching Resources, History

Twitter and Your PLN: One Teacher's Story

Posted by Ashley Proulx on February 27, 2015

I remember driving to work one morning in 2008, vaguely paying attention to the DJ discussing Ashton Kutcher‘s recent Twitter rant about noisy neighbors. I had no idea what Twitter was.I was 25 at the time, right about at the stage in my life where adulthood began to officially set in and my knowledge of all things trendy began to rapidly decrease.

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Topics: Professional Development, Antisemitism, Teaching Resources, Social Media, Twitter, EdTech, PLN, Media Skills, Online Learning, Critical Thinking, Facing Technology

Facing the Past: Lynching and American Civic Memory

Posted by Karen Murphy on February 19, 2015

Sam Hose. Thomas Moss. Elias Clayton. Keith Bowen. Jesse Thornton. William Little. Jeff Brown.
They are just seven names of thousands of black Americans murdered by lynching, many of which were included last week in a report from Bryan Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) that identifies victims of lynching between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and 1950. It's a list that could go on for pages and, yet, still to this day remains incomplete.

The history of lynching remains widely unknown today, especially among many white Americans.

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Topics: To Kill a Mockingbird, Reconstruction, News, Race and Membership, Teaching Resources, History

Questions We Hope Get Answered in Harper Lee’s "Go Set a Watchman"

Posted by Dan Sigward on February 12, 2015

Facing History's offices have been abuzz since Harper Lee's "new" novel was announced earlier this month.

This literary event—taking place 55 years after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird and about six months after Facing History published Teaching Mockingbird, its study guide to the novel—comes at a time when we have been diving deep into the themes of Lee's classic novel, both as a staff and with educators around the world.

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Topics: To Kill a Mockingbird, Books, English Language Arts, Facing History Resources, Teaching, Teaching Resources, Civil Rights

Four Classroom Resources to Use for Presidents’ Day

Posted by Julia Rappaport on February 10, 2015

In the United States, Presidents’ Day is celebrated Monday. The national holiday offers an opportunity for valuable discussion in the classroom about the importance—and the fragility—of democracy now and throughout history. Here are four Facing History and Ourselves resources that can help you plan an exciting lesson.

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Topics: Professional Development, Teaching Strategies, Democracy, Voting Rights, Choosing to Participate, Facing History Resources, Religious Tolerance, Teaching, Teaching Resources, History

Reconsidering Selma: Teaching the Stories Behind a Pivotal Moment in History

Posted by Adam Strom on January 8, 2015

There are so many moments throughout history whose untold and overlooked stories make them much more fascinating than the versions that are typically taught or talked about in the classroom. The 1965 civil rights march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery is one of those stories.

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Topics: Civil Rights Movement, Film, Democracy, Voting Rights, Choosing to Participate, Selma, Facing History Resources, Teaching Resources, Video, Civil Rights, History

New Resource from Teaching Tolerance Features Diverse Readings on Identity and Action

Posted by Jocelyn Stanton on December 12, 2014

Facing History and Ourselves often partners with the wonderful educational organization Teaching Tolerance to share resources and best practices that help educators, young people, and communities have safe conversations about tolerance, identity, and difficult moments in history.
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Topics: Teaching Resources, Civil Rights, Holocaust and Human Behavior, Diversity, Common Core State Standards

After Eric Garner: One School’s Courageous Conversation

Posted by Dr. Steven Becton on December 10, 2014

As I prepared to write this post, I had to confront the most difficult, yet most important, person that I would be in conversation with: myself.

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Topics: Classrooms, Teaching Strategies, Democracy, Students, Human Rights, Safe Schools, Teaching, Schools, News, Identity, Teaching Resources, Teachers

A Piece of History You Might Not Have Learned in School

Posted by Fran Sterling on December 8, 2014

This weekend marks the 77th anniversary of the Nanjing Atrocities, a seminal event in the history of World War II, yet one that few know much about.
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Topics: Books, Facing History Resources, Genocide/Collective Violence, Facing History and Ourselves, Teaching Resources, History

At Facing History and Ourselves, we value conversation—in classrooms, in our professional development for educators, and online. When you comment on Facing Today, you're engaging with our worldwide community of learners, so please take care that your contributions are constructive, civil, and advance the conversation.

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Welcome to Facing Today, a Facing History blog. Facing History and Ourselves combats racism and antisemitism by using history to teach tolerance in classrooms around the globe.

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