Social Justice educational publishers and organizations Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change have published a middle and high school history curriculum based on Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. A copy is available for free download here. To download a free copy you must agree to respond to a survey and provide feedback after completing the book. You need not be a middle or high school teacher to download a copy.
According to the publisher’s website, the project was sponsored by an anonymous donor who had attended some of Zinn’s lectures at Boston University in the 1970s and recently watched You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, a movie about Zinn’s life. He found Zinn’s work so compelling and important, he wanted to make sure it was available to students of all ages.
In response to the failings of most middle and high school history books he notes that are written in such a way that students do not recognize our our human potential in history making. He writes: “Everything in history once is happens looks as if it had to happen exactly that way. We can’t imagine any other. But I am convinced of the uncertainty of history, of the possibility of surprise, of the importance of human action in changing what looks unchangeable.”
I will post more when I finish the book.
Has anyone else read the teaching packet or know of any teachers using it in the classroom?
For more information about Howard Zinn, you can visit his personal website.