Organizing the Curriculum

Perspectives on Teaching the US Labor Movement

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Contemporary American youth live in a culture that ignores or denigrates labor unions. Mainstream media cover labor issues only sparingly and unions no longer play much of a role in popular culture texts, films, or images. In our schools labor has been limited to a footnote in textbooks instead of being treated seriously as the most effective force for championing the rights of working people—the vast majority of the citizenry. Teachers have been convinced that to bring up class or to teach about the labor movement may be construed as “taking sides,” while the all-pervasive presence of corporate America in our schools is rarely questioned. So for all the talk of schools preparing young people for the work world, we are failing to teach them even the basics of how that world is structured or how they can be empowered through collective action.
Organizing the Curriculum: Perspectives on Teaching the US Labor Movement is the first book-length treatment of this blind spot in contemporary curriculum and pedagogy. Contributors to this collection—unionists, activists, teachers, teacher educators, and academics—interrogate the ways in which knowledge is constructed in school discourses, conceptualize pedagogical strategies and curricula that open discussions around class analysis and political economy via studies of the labor movement, and put forward an activist vision of education that truly engages young people beyond the classroom walls.

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Labor’s Exclusion from Official Knowledge
The Louisiana/Texas Timber Wars of 1907-1913
Pages: 19–40
A Letter to Family and Friends from the Labor Front
Justice for Janitors in Houston, Texas (2006)
Pages: 41–61
A Paradigm Shift in the Making for Teachers of Working-Class Students
From Extrinsic Motivation and Border Crossing to Freirean Motivation and Collective Advancement
Pages: 75–84
Teaching What Unions Do
Empowering Young People with Knowledge of their Rights at Work
Pages: 85–100
Uncovering History through Biography and Personal Narrative
Women and the US Labor Movement
Pages: 129–143
Lewis Hine and His Photo Stories
Using Photos for Teaching Across the Curriculum
Pages: 155–170
From The Bobbin Girl to The Breaker Boys
An Annotated Bibliography of Children’s Books with Labor Themes
Pages: 191–201
SEIU Local 32 BJ’s Youth Brigade
Labor Education through Labor Activism
Pages: 221–231
Every Labor Leader’s Second Favorite Topic:
A Short History of the CFT Labor in the Schools Committee, 1987 – 2007
Pages: 233–247
This book will be of interest to teachers, teacher educators, labor educators and anyone interested in promoting resurgence of the labor movement.
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