Category: News and Updates

Are you looking for effective strategies to help your students navigate difficult conversations? Join us for a joint webinar with Facing History & Ourselves to explore practical approaches for fostering civil discourse in the classroom.

This session will introduce new content from the Center for Civic Education, designed to build discourse skills with a special focus on rural and Indigenous communities through the Elevating Unheard Perspectives through Civil Discourse curriculum. While this curriculum highlights these communities, educators from all backgrounds and settings will find valuable strategies and adaptable materials to enhance student engagement in meaningful discussions. We’ll explore helpful tools and strategies to prepare students for these conversations in the Facing History guide, Fostering Civil Discourse: Difficult Classroom Conversations in a Diverse Democracy.

You’ll also have the opportunity to participate in reflective practice and peer discussions to refine your approach to facilitating dynamic, culturally relevant conversations in your classroom.

Can’t make it live? Register anyway, and we’ll notify you when the recording is available for on-demand viewing—typically within a week of the webinar.

About Us

Facing History & Ourselves uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and students to stand up to racism, antisemitism, and other forms of bigotry and hate. Facing History’s resources and professional learning support teachers to cultivate a strong sense of civic responsibility and engagement in their students. Together, we are strengthening democracy by preparing the next generation to build more civil and just communities based on knowledge and compassion.

The Center for Civic Education is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to promoting an enlightened and responsible citizenry committed to democratic principles and actively engaged in the practice of democracy in the United States and other countries. The Center’s programs are designed to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions they need to be informed and engaged citizens.

Register for the Discussion

April 23, 2025

Time: 7:00 pm ET / 4:00 pm PT

Dreaming of a career in sustainability or working with the United Nations?

Schiller International University, in partnership with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), offers specialized master’s programs designed to prepare future global leaders. Through this collaboration, you will gain firsthand insights into sustainable development, international diplomacy, and the inner workings of the UN—equipping you with the skills to make a real impact on the world stage.

Find out more

Last Friday of Every Month in 2025

Join us! 4/25/25 at 9am PT.

Please join us on the last Friday of every month at 9am PT, 12pm ET for an open dialogue to just join in connection. UHRI facilitators will rotate.

This dialogue will be facilitated by Malcolm Wright and Paul Asland.

All are welcome!

Register at:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/LhXNgGTlTkKyXtM7YF-YRw

In 2023, Minnesota became the 23rd state to mandate genocide studies education for students in grades 6-12. This landmark decision not only required the topic to be incorporated into pre-college education, but also recognized the colonization and forced removal of Indigenous people from their homeland as a genocide. It soon became clear that many teachers, particularly in greater Minnesota, lacked the necessary resources and training to effectively teach this subject. That’s when the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS) stepped in.

With grant funding from the Human Rights Initiative (HRI), CHGS Interim Director Joe Eggers and research assistant and history PhD candidate Tibisay Navarro-Mana launched the podcast, Big Concepts in Small Spaces. The podcast is designed to engage high school students in conversations about human rights, genocide, and the law. Read more about the project.

The spring issue of Rethinking Schools features a lesson on LGBTQ+ movement history by high school teacher and Prentiss Charney fellow Nick Palazzolo. The editorial, “Creating Classrooms for Equity and Social Justice,” provides an essential vision as the right wing attacks social justice education like never before. Linda Christensen teaches the writing process by encouraging students to celebrate beloved places with the haibun, a Japanese poetic form. Los Angeles elementary school teachers describe a unit on changemakers and how their 1st and 2nd graders learn about power, change, representation, and community through the songs of Nina Simone. Olvin Abrego Ayala and Elizabeth Hertzler-McCain examine the ways 10 popular U.S. history textbooks ignore the U.S. government’s role in destabilizing Central America. And more. Every issue of Rethinking Schools provides essential content on public education. Subscribe now if you don’t already. Read and Subscribe

Join Re-Imagining Migration and Woven Teaching for a dynamic webinar for educators! In a period of rapid change and upheaval, join us to receive resources for supporting students in taking action to uphold inclusive, democratic values. Help students overcome feelings of apathy and disengagement with strategies and resources from two organizations committed to educating young people about their human rights, their responsibility to each other, and fostering communities where everyone belongs.

Register for the April 30 Webinar

Fighting Apathy With Action: Civic Education Today will be an interactive webinar for high school educators. Participants will receive free lessons and materials for teaching some of the most critical issues of the moment: protecting democracy, understanding stories of migration, building civic agency, and creating classroom environments where all students experience a sense of belonging. We will be sharing powerful examples of civic action to fight intolerance, including examples of civically engaged immigrant youth standing up in society and at school, demonstrating how belonging is built through meaningful participation.

Wednesday, April 30, 2025
4:00-5:30pm PT  /  7:00-8:30pm ET
Register >

Tuesday, April 15
7:00pm – 8:30pm

Understand how today’s civil rights movement is changing the rules and rewriting the story from one of the nation’s leading civil rights historians.

We’re excited to share that former March On! board member Tony Williams will join his father, award-winning journalist Juan Williams, for a public conversation at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library about Juan’s new book, New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America’s Second Civil Rights Movement.
 
You may know his earlier work, Eyes on the Prize, which chronicled the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. This new book picks up that thread—looking at where we are now, how we got here, and what it means for the next generation of changemakers.
 
Their conversation will cover the movements reshaping America today, from Black Lives Matter to debates over education, tech, and democracy. They’ll talk about history—but they’ll also talk about what it looks like to lead, build, and advocate in this moment.
 
There will be a Q&A and book signing after the conversation. Register Today