SCHOOL VISIT WORKSHOPS, PROGRAMS, AND SPEAKING TOPICS

The History of U.S. Labor in 60 Minutes

Grades 6-12 , 60 minutes, serves up to 30 students

A fast-paced narrative intended to introduce civic competence and spark further inquiry.

From Christopher Columbus to the United Auto Workers’ Stand Up Strike in 2023, hear the stories of  labor’s biggest moments. The Lokono Nation, the indentured and enslaved, Bacon and Leisler, the Sons of Liberty, Samuel Slater and the rise of the business association, monopolies and fraud and economic crises, the Federalists vs. The Democratic Republicans with their Bill of Rights, Nationals, Locals, speed ups, the Springtime of Peoples and the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age, the Great Upheaval, Haymarket, Homestead and the Pinkertons, Samuel Gompers and the AFL, trade unionism vs. industrial unionism, the Pullman Strike, Injunctions, the Populists, the Progressive Era and the IWW, the Shirtwaist Strike and Shirtwaist Fire, the Lawrence Strike…you get it.

 

History is Interconnected

Grades 6-12 , 45 minutes, serves up to 30 students

A presentation designed to welcome complexity into historical study and debate.

When the proposal for Shift Happens went out into the world, it contained a sample of four chapters…the lead up to WWI. Many editors rejected the book with notes reading, “…the sample felt a bit focused on issues outside of labor.” The lead up to World War I (and pretty much all wars the U.S. has engaged in) is directly related to labor. Labor readies the nations for war. Labor fights and dies in war. And it rebuilds the nation following it. Beyond these obvious points, in the lead up to and the aftermath of war (WWI, WWII, etc.) wages go down, hours increase, and unions are crushed. War and labor are linked. Also linked to labor…gender, disability, race, class, healthcare, mass incarceration, climate change, etc. When we connect labor to everything it is actually connected to, the strength and importance of labor is revealed, and is possibly the reason interconnection is often dissuaded.

Building a Critical Consciousness

Grades 6-12 , 45 minutes, serves up to 30 students

An interactive workshop engaging students in questioning and critical thinking.

In the era of a maturing internet, students are bombarded with information. Sifting through and identifying these sources is not easy. There are many ways to evaluate a source (with fun techniques like the CRAP method) developed to help students determine a sources’ value. In conjunction with these techniques, building a critics consciousness is key. Reading a text for word usage, bias, dog-whistling, and prejudice is a learned skill. Students will work through historical documents to identify prejudice—moving forward in time to evaluate present-day sources. Building a critics consciousness is not only an important skill for identifying sources, but is central to participating in a healthy democracy.

Speaking and paneling

  • Bias vs. Viewpoint

  • Unions in Context with Communism and Socialism

  • Civic Competence

  • Public Spaces

  • Disability and Gender

  • Eugenics and Institutionalization