Home     Buy the Book     Sample Pages     Educator Comments     About the Book

Planning to Change the World is a plan book for teachers who believe their students can create meaningful social change It is the product of a collaboration between two education networks—the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) and the Education for Liberation Network. The information and ideas featured on its pages come from teachers, college students and activists who, like you, struggle daily to put their values into practice. Our first edition was for the  2008-2009 school year.

This plan book is designed to help teachers translate their vision of a just education into concrete classroom activities. Planning to Change the World is packed with important social justice birthdays and historical events, words of wisdom from visionary leaders, lesson plans, resources, social justice education happenings and more.

It also connects you to a national community of educators who are interested in social justice teaching. In this book we hear from teachers like you who care about their students, respect them and think they can and will change the world. Teachers who believe it is their job to help them learn how to do that. This plan book was created to make that job just a little easier by helping you turn your daily lesson planning into strategy for teaching toward democracy, fairness and peace.

The 10 Year Rule

There are so many events and people that could be featured in a planner like this, we had to find a way to narrow the possibilities. So we established the 10 year rule which generally means that (with a few exceptions) anniversaries/birthdays must fall on a 10 year mark to be included (e.g., the 10th anniversary/birthday, the 20th, 40th, 80th, 120th etc.). That means each calendar has a different  set of dates.

Here are a few of the dates from the 2011-2012 plan book:

1/17/1942    Muhammad Ali, champion boxer and activist, born (1942). Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.) is a retired three-time World Heavyweight Champion boxer.  A vigilant activist, he consistently stood up for his beliefs at all costs, refusing to serve in Vietnam and taking a stand against racism and imperialism. 

3/3/1972      40th anniversary of the Center for Independent Living. This Berkeley, California center was the world's first community-based independent living facility. It was established by a group of disabled students from the University of California at Berkeley, a key moment in the broader movement for independent living.

3/24/1982    30th anniversary of the Sanctuary Movement (also called the Overground Railroad). On the second anniversary the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador, John Fife, a Presbyterian Reverend in Tucson, declared his congregation a sanctuary for refugees from civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador, catalyzing a nationwide movement by religious institutions. In doing so, they acted in violation of federal law. The US government, which supported the Guatemalan and Salvadoran governments, would not recognize most people fleeing violence in Central America as political refugees.

4/6/1882      Rose Schneiderman, labor activist, born (1882 to 1972). Schniederman, a Polish immigrant, organized women in the factory where she worked, and rose to become a leading labor activist in NYC. She coined the phrase "Bread and Roses," which became associated with the 1912 strike in Lawrence, MA.

4/7/1912      Harry Hay, LGTB activist, born (1912 to 2002). Hay, a teacher and labor leader, was one of the earliest leaders of the LGBT movement in the US.

4/29/1992    20th anniversary of the start of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising. This uprising was in response to an all-White jury acquitting four White police officers accused in the videotaped beating of African American motorist Rodney King. Thousands of people in L.A. attacked businesses, cars and individuals the days following the verdict.

5/15/1982    30th anniversary of a landmark Supreme Court decision about public education and undocumented immigrants. In Plyler v. Doe, which grew out of a dispute in Texas, the court determined states could no longer withhold public education from children simply because they are undocumented.

6/23/1982    30th anniversary of the murder of Vincent Chin. Chin was a Chinese American who was murdered in Detroit by two White autoworkers. Chin's killers, however, got off with a fine, but no jail time. Asian Americans organized for civil suits to be filed against his killers, and Chin's murder is often considered the beginning of a pan-ethnic Asian American movement.

8/22/1791     220th anniversary of the Haitian slave revolt. Slaves from the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) staged a revolt that eventually led to its independence from France. Haiti was the first independent nation in Latin America, the first post-colonial independent black-led nation in the world and the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful slave rebellion.

8/251921     90th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Blair Mountain. More than 10,000 West Virginia coal miners, who had suffered years of brutality and exploitation, took up arms against the mine owners, who were supported by the police. The resulting week-long battle was the largest armed labor uprising in US history. As a result, union membership plummeted. But it also raised awareness of the appalling conditions of miners and eventually led to larger union victories under the New Deal.

12/10/1921  Grace Thorpe, Native American activist, born (1921 to 2008). Thorpe was a Sac and Fox Indian, a tribal judge and anti-nuclear activist. She co-led a group of six hundred Native Americans in occupying Alcatraz Island for more than a year to demand the land be returned to Native people.      

About Our Organizations

Planning to Change the World was created by the New York Collective of Radical Educators and the Education for Liberation Network  with the support of Rethinking Schools. Proceeds from the sale of the plan book support the work NYCoRE and the network. Questions about the book? Email Tara Mack: tara@edliberation.org.

The Education for Liberation Network (www.edliberation.org) is a national coalition of teachers, community activists, youth, researchers and parents who believe a good education should teach people—particularly low-income youth and youth of color—to understand and challenge the injustices their communities face. The network aims to help improve the practice of Education for Liberation by bringing people together to learn from each other’s experiences. If you would like to join this community of educators, you can sign up for our listserv on www.edliberation.org/join-us.

Looking for social justice teaching materials? Check out the Education for Liberation Network’s online database (www.edliberation.org/resources). Called the EdLib Lab, the database is a collection of hundreds of lesson plans and other resources from teachers, organizations and researchers across the country. The Lab allows you both to search for materials and to post your own.

The New York Collective of Radical Educators (www.nycore.org) is a group of public school educators in New York committed to fighting for social justice in our school system and society at large by organizing and mobilizing teachers, developing curriculum and working with community, parent and student organizations. We are educators who believe that education is an integral part of social change and that we must work both inside and outside the classroom because the struggle for justice does not end when the school bell rings. Please visit our website to learn more about or to join our organizing groups on issues such as high stakes testing, military recruitment and supporting queer youth. Also available are announcements about upcoming events and NYCoRE created curricula, including our first book, Camouflaged: Investigating How the U.S. Military Affects You and Your Community.

 The book is edited by Tara Mack and Bree Picower. Tara is the Director of the Education for Liberation Network. Bree is a professor at Montclair State University and core member of the New York Collective of Radical Educators.