Ideas This Week
Ideas This Week is your hub for updates on all things Facing History—from announcements and featured press to expert interviews, impact stories, and essays on the ideas driving our work.
How Two Teenagers Created a Textbook for Racial Literacy
Activist and author Winona Guo discusses the importance of personal narratives in fostering racial literacy and promoting democracy.
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
David Blight’s celebrated biography of Frederick Douglass provides insight into a complicated hero of the 19th century.
A Life Dedicated to Ending Genocide
Benjamin Ferencz helped convict 22 Nazis at the Nuremberg trials and advocated tirelessly to end crimes against humanity.
Common Ground Revisited
Learn about the play Common Ground Revisited, which explores various ways that key historical actors may have experienced the 1970s school desegregation in Boston and the different ways that contemporary Bostonians relate to these historical events.
Why Teach Reconstruction Today?
Studying the history of Reconstruction reveals that American history is lined with recurring cycles of social progress and backlash in which everyday people have surmounted immense barriers to drive powerful change.
How AAPI Thinkers are Redefining Asianness
Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) thought leaders reveal their experiences with “single stories” to demonstrate what it can look like to push back against restrictive narratives that dominate American society.
Teaching About Anti-Asian Violence: Start with Yourself and Your Community
Most school curriculum fails to adequately address Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) histories and identities, which contributes to a widespread lack of understanding that fuels the anti-AAPI hate we see today. Facing History provides suggestions and resources for educators to better address AAPI histories so as to avoid continuing this damaging trend.
Remembering Grace Lee Boggs
The story of Chinese American activist and philosopher, Grace Lee Boggs, provides an inspiring example of the effectiveness of cross-racial organizing work between Black and Asian communities in pursuing racial justice by discovering shared stakes, committing to collective action, and nurturing ongoing resistance.
Complicating "Asian Americans"
Facing History explores the complex story surrounding this term to broaden educators' understanding of and ability to teach about AAPI and API histories and contemporary life.
Centering AAPI Students in the Classroom: An Expert Interview
Dr. Guofang Li and Dr. Nicholas D. Hartlep, leading scholars in the field of Asian-American Education, discuss obstacles to delivering quality education to Asian and Pacific Islander American (AAPI) students, the emergence and pervasiveness of the “model minority myth” (or “stereotype”), and how educators can actively center the needs and experiences of their AAPI students.
Why Genocide Recognition Matters
Facing History Sr. Director of Marketing & Analytics Jen Langley reflects on her personal connection to the Armenian Genocide.