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In early January of 2010, teachers across the United States submitted questions for an interview Bill Bigelow conducted with Howard Zinn. We revisit the conversation on this 100th anniversary of Howard Zinn’s birth and as teachers face curricular gag-rules in more than 40 states. Published by Rethinking Schools, here is Zinn’s answer to one of the questions. 

Bigelow: Nick Schueller is working on his master’s in education and wants to know what your advice would be for a future history teacher.

Zinn: My advice for a future history teacher is, “Don’t obey the rules.” Don’t be intimidated by what they say you must teach. I realize that there’s a practical problem that you don’t want to get fired tomorrow. . . .

But you must not be so intimidated that you will just follow scrupulously: “Oh, you must use this book.” “You must follow this curriculum.” You have to play a kind of guerrilla warfare with the establishment in which you try not to be fired.

If you don’t take any risks, you’re not doing the right thing. . . . You have to give your students reading materials that they would not ordinarily get. You have to depart from the curriculum. Maybe do enough with the regular text to show that, OK, I’m not ignoring it completely, but no, I’m going to take my students along an independent path.

That’s the most important advice I can give to a young teacher about independence and courage and risk.

The Zinn Education Project is accepting applications for Teaching for Black Lives Study Groups for the 2022–2023 school year. We are particularly interested in applications from teachers in states where we've not had a group before: Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaiʻi, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

This is a free professional learning opportunity. Each study group receives:

• Teaching for Black Lives book and study guide for each participant (up to 20)
• Rethinking Schools subscription for each participant (up to 20)
• Introductory workshop with the editors of Teaching for Black Lives
• Access to invitation-only presentations and curriculum workshops 
• Access to a network of other teacher study groups across the United States
• and more.

Learn more from the three-minute video below.

Last year, we hosted 100 groups across the United States. One teacher noted:

Throughout the week of the 100th anniversary of Howard Zinn’s birth on Aug. 24, 1922, there will be events for educators, archivists, and the wider community to learn from Zinn’s life and work — and to share the many ways that people continue to document and teach people’s history.

For the centennial, we are also highlighting people’s historians who preceded Zinns historians who preceded Zinn and sharing Zinn's writing and actions against incarceration.

Wherever you are this summer, take a photo with a #TeachTruth sign and share it on social media. Read more.

Teaching people’s history is under attack. Your donation helps us support teachers and provide more free people’s history lessons.

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PO BOX 73038, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20056 

202-588-7205 | zinnedproject.org