About the Zinn Education Project

The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the teaching of people’s history in classrooms across the country. The Zinn Education Project is coordinated by two non-profit organizations, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change, that have spent decades developing and providing social justice resources for teachers.

Since 2008, the Zinn Education Project has introduced students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. With more than 177,000 people registered, and growing by more than 10,000 new registrants every year, the Zinn Education Project has become a leading resource for teachers and teacher educators.

The empowering potential of studying history is often lost in a textbook-driven trivial pursuit of names and dates. We believe that through taking a more engaging and more honest look at the past, we can help equip students — and all of us — with the analytical tools to make sense of and improve the world today. For a more complete description of our approach, read why teach people’s history.

Our website offers free, downloadable lessons and articles organized by theme, time period, and grade level. Based on the approach to history highlighted in Howard Zinn’s best-selling book A People’s History of the United States, our teaching materials emphasize the role of working people, women, people of color, and organized social movements in shaping history.

Mill Children Lesson

Other lessons