New for the 2019 school year, our printable Explainers introduce key terms and ideas that are essential to understanding today’s news.
This Explainer describes the standards that governments need to meet before, during, and after an election to ensure that the election is "free and fair."
This Explainer defines the term political polarization and provides information on how it impacts US politics and society.
This explainer describes key characteristics of white nationalist ideology and clarifies related key-terms, such as “alt-right” and “white power.”
This Explainer presents statistics on migration around the world and defines key terms such as migrant, refugee, and asylum seeker.
Our Teaching Ideas help you address specific events and issues in the news. With a variety of accessible resources and engaging teaching strategies, they can be used for all or part of a class period. We also offer on-demand webinars on a range of topics for professional learning that fits your schedule.
Use these activities to help students reflect on the themes in Amanda Gorman’s Inauguration Day poem and consider how their unique experiences and voices can help America “forge a union with purpose.”
In this Teaching Idea, students learn about the history of democratic and anti-democratic efforts in the United States and examine sources that illuminate this tension from Reconstruction through today.
This Teaching Idea guides students to use an iceberg diagram to synthesize the events of January 6, 2021, and outline the complex array of causes at work.
Pause. Take a breath. In the past few years and, more urgently, in the past months and weeks, some Americans have used the language of division to describe the United States—a "divided society." We are and have been. Using these kinds of labels helps, I think, because they allow us to begin giving language to our problems and then open up possible solutions. We have many fractures. There's not one thing that divides us. In other countries, people speak more freely of identity-based conflicts—sectarian, racial, and ethnic. We, too, have identity-based conflicts—this is one legacy of our unredressed history of racial injustice, violence, and oppression. We are also divided by additional vectors of inequality and we are divided by partisanship.
This Teaching Idea is designed to help guide an initial classroom reflection on the insurrection at the US Capitol that occurred on January 6, 2021.
This Teaching Idea contains guidance on how to discuss the election with your students and activities to help them process their responses, find accurate information, and consider the impact of the results.
This Teaching Ideas uses our Free and Fair Elections Explainer to help students reflect on the importance of elections, define the phrase “free and fair elections,” and learn about electoral systems in their region.
At Facing History, we stand with educators who are working to disrupt rising white nationalism.
This Teaching Idea examines how bias in policing operates at the individual, community, city, and societal levels, and then invites students to use this framework to begin a discussion about creating solutions to the issue of biased policing.
This Teaching Idea asks students to wrestle with the complexity of policing, public safety, and bias by exploring a variety of contemporary sources on policing.
This Teaching Idea provides a brief overview of the history of policing in the early United States and then examines how laws, and biased enforcement of those laws, were used to control the lives of Black Americans in the South following the Civil War.
The history of debate and civil discourse between candidates running for political office in the United States has long been held up as a pillar of our elections process and our democracy. Typically used as a means to debate policy publicly, defend positions, and appeal to voters, debates bring candidates into the same space and ask them to adhere to a set of agreed upon rhetorical rules of engagement.
This Teaching idea prepares students to engage in conversations about policing, bias, and racism by inviting them to co-create class norms and reflect on the emotions and experiences they and their classmates bring.
This Teaching Idea provides students with an opportunity to deepen their understanding of democracy and a framework for making meaning of news stories about the tensions and conflicts in democracies today.
This Teaching Idea uses the story of the Robert E. Lee monument to help students consider the power of symbols and explore the summer's protests through the lens of voice, agency, and solidarity.
Explore the origin and legacy of the Take A Knee protest in the NFL, the significance of the more recent athlete boycotts, and the long history of athletes protesting racial injustice in the United States.
How do we talk about issues that matter? The exchange of ideas, perspectives and arguments is essential to democracy and humane societies.
Prepare to discuss current events themes from spring and summer 2020 including the Black Lives Matter movement, monument removal, global responses to COVID-19, and changes to elections around the world. See articles sharing perspectives that educators might consider as they prepare to greet students and colleagues.
As the George Floyd protests continue in cities around the country, debate continues to mount about the future of policing. A wide network of activist groups have been calling for the nation’s police departments to be defunded, insisting that attempts at incremental reform have failed and alternative approaches to public safety must be implemented.
This Teaching Idea is a guide for teachers to begin conversations with their students about George Floyd’s death and the events that surround it.
This Teaching Idea is designed to help students reflect on how the movies, shows, and books we consume can reinforce stereotypes about Muslims and the harmful impact stereotyping has on people's lives.
Help students explore the underlying causes of racial inequity in coronavirus outcomes with the activities in this Teaching Idea.
This Teaching Idea features Google Slides with activities that prompt students to reflect on the difficult ethical questions we’re all facing during the coronavirus crisis.
Inform students about the rising number of antisemitic incidents in the United States and explore the story of one teacher’s response to an antisemitic incident involving high school students in her community.
This Teaching Idea provides facts about the new coronavirus and allows students to explore instances of discrimination related to COVID-19.
This teaching idea provides an overview of the ERA and a look at the history behind the struggle to ratify the amendment that would formally guarantee women equal rights to men under the US Constitution.
Use this Teaching Idea to inform students about recent episodes of racism and antisemitism in schools across the US, probe their causes and impact, and consider positive ways that communities can respond to hate.
The Iowa caucuses are the first chance voters in the US have to cast a ballot in support of a presidential candidate. Help students understand how the caucuses work, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of voting in person, and explore the question of whether Iowa should be the first state to vote.
Explore media bias using recent news coverage of controversial events and help students think about what healthy news habits they want to adopt.
As people living on American soil await a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on the fate of DACA—the immigration policy that has permitted some 700,000 undocumented youth to remain in the U.S. after being brought here as children—one figurehead of the undocumented movement is urging young immigrants to be fearless in building their lives here, with or without the right papers.
The news cycles of the last few years have captured countless instances of racist violence perpetrated by white people against black people—a continuation of a long history of antiblack violence in the United States. And amid this legacy of violence, a number of black figures have done the unimaginable: they have publicly expressed forgiveness to avowedly racist white people who murdered their relatives and community members.
As public presidential impeachment hearings begin in the US House of Representatives, American middle and high school educators face a number of unique challenges. Here are 4 strategies that can help you make the impeachment inquiry a teachable moment.
Reading “laterally” is a key media literacy strategy that helps students determine the quality of online sources. This Teaching Idea trains students to use this technique to evaluate the credibility of the news they encounter on social media feeds or elsewhere online.
The Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without a state, and they often play important roles in politics and conflicts in the Middle East. This Teaching Idea helps students answer questions like “Who are the Kurds and why are they divided among so many countries in the Middle East?”
This past fortnight has seen an alarming number of antisemitic and racist incidents in the news: in Germany, two people were killed and many more terrorised in a mass shooting attempt that targeted a synagogue; in Bulgaria, football fans taunted players with racist chants and Nazi salutes; in Hertfordshire, a teacher allegedly “joked” about sending primary school pupils who failed to complete their work “to the gas chamber”(and then told them not to tell anyone); and in politics, another Labour politician resigned from the party citing the rise of antisemitism as the reason for her departure.
Provide students with historical context for understanding the protests against the Thirty Meter Telescope on Maunakea and help them explore the reasons why many Native Hawaiians oppose its construction.
With reparations in the news, this Teaching Idea helps students define the term, learn what forms reparations can take, and consider what reparations should be offered for slavery and other racist policies.
Explore with your students why young people are calling for action against climate change and some of the strategies they can use to make a difference on this issue.
Deepen students’ understanding of the issue of migrant detention by having them consider the diverse perspectives of detained migrants, an immigration lawyer, a border guard, and an immigration judge.
Help students understand how the United States’ complex asylum process works. Invite them to consider the question, who has an obligation to asylum seekers?
Exploring why people migrate is essential to understanding migration at the US–Mexico border. Use these activities to examine migration from El Salvador to the US and the factors that drive migration.
This teaching idea contains strategies and activities for supporting your students in the aftermath of a mass shooting, terrorist attack, or other violent event.
Explore ideas around access to voting by learning about India’s general election and the country’s commitment to ensuring that all voters are close to a polling station.
More than 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, give students an overview of the problem of school segregation in the United States today and open a discussion about possible solutions.
Facilitate discussion in your classroom around the recent attacks in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim places of worship, and explore with students how communities respond after incidents of hate.
Explore how dress codes can unfairly target the appearance of certain groups of people and help students consider what fair school dress codes look like.
These activities are designed to help students reflect on the devastating attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Teach students about Representative Shirley Chisholm’s groundbreaking career and connect her story to today’s 116th Congress—the most diverse federal legislative body in US history.
Created in partnership with Girl Rising, this teaching idea invites students to engage with the story of a young refugee and to consider the power of storytelling to spark empathy.
Provide students with context for understanding China’s ongoing persecution of the Uighur Muslims and encourage them to consider the experiences of this religious minority group targeted with discriminatory policies and incarceration.
Use this teaching idea to introduce students to the story of Governor Northam, examine the history of blackface in the years before the Civil War, and consider how leaders and citizens should respond today.
Help students analyze recent trends regarding receding Holocaust memory and the resurgence of antisemitism in Europe, and prompt them to consider how history can help us confront hate in the world.
Help students develop a framework for analyzing and discussing the incidents of racial bias they’re seeing in the news and on social media.
Use the UDHR as a framework to help students understand the progress that has been made since the document's adoption and the areas where we continue to fall short in protecting and promoting human rights today.
Use this Teaching Idea during the 2020 election season to help students explore the expansion and constriction of voting rights throughout US history.
Students reflect on the role of freedom of the press by exploring the recent story of two journalists arrested in Myanmar while investigating the killings of Rohingya civilians.
Use recent photographs to help students connect to the experiences of migrants and to better understand the scale of global migration.
Inform students about the Trump administration’s family separation policy and help them emotionally process the human side of this news story.
Help students to examine recent events and statistics about the rise of antisemitism in Europe and to consider how we can respond to hate.
Use these activities and resources on Japanese American incarceration during World War II to introduce students to this history while exploring questions about American identity, racism, and citizenship.
Many students considered participating in the national school walkouts to protest gun violence following the Parkland, Florida school shooting. Use this teaching idea to explore the rich history of youth activism from the 1960s to present day. You'll prepare them to think critically as they examine current events through a historical lens and equip them with tools and strategies to engage in difficult conversations.
Use this teaching idea to help your students draw connections between the long history of black women’s activism against sexual violence and gender discrimination with the #MeToo movement today. The questions and activities focus on the experiences of Recy Taylor, Rosa Parks, and Essie Favrot.
Use the following lesson and activities with your students to provide context for the 2018 U.S. immigration debate over who can come to the United States, who can stay, and what it means to be American. Recent news and debates may seem especially combative, but they echo earlier moments in US history when Americans questioned who could become a citizen.
Students place this ongoing crisis in historical context, view footage from a refugee camp, and reflect on survivor testimony.
Use these teaching strategies and resources to strengthen your students' media literacy skills.
Reading “laterally” is a key media literacy strategy that helps students determine the quality of online sources. This Teaching Idea trains students to use this technique to evaluate the credibility of the news they encounter on social media feeds or elsewhere online.
Help students identify and analyze the key characteristics of the three most common types of news articles.
View our teacher checklist for preparing to teach current events to middle and high school students. We include recommended news sources, key questions to ask yourself as you plan, and strategies for navigating emotionally difficult or complex topics.
Help students become informed and effective civic participants in today's digital landscape. This unit is designed to develop students' critical thinking, news literacy, civic engagement, and social-emotional skills and competencies.
Our partners at the News Literacy Project developed the media literacy resource Checkology, a set of lessons designed to help students learn how to critically evaluate and interpret news sources.
Explore media bias using recent news coverage of controversial events and help students think about what healthy news habits they want to adopt.