Dear Friends:

 

Five years ago my father and a former student founded the Zinn Education Project----ZEP, along with two nonprofit organizations, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change. What began as a simple act of distributing copies of A People's History of the United States to teachers, became a project that provides free downloadable teaching materials and creative, well-researched "people's history" curricula to teachers across the country. ZEP provides invaluable support to teachers who want to give their students a different view of history, and make vital connections between the past and what's happening in our country today.

ZEP recently recorded its 34,000th teacher registration and the website has about 350,000 visitors each year. My father would be heartened to see that so many K-12 educators are "teaching outside the textbook."

ZEP also has a robust presence on Facebook, which has become an active focal point for the exchange of ideas and materials. In addition, ZEP's ongoing series: "If We Knew Our History" and "This Day in History," feature specific struggles and transformative moments in history that don't appear in traditional history texts.

On this fifth anniversary, please join me in supporting the essential work ZEP is doing to insure that young people have a more complete view of the history of their country----learning from the voices and experiences of ordinary people engaged in struggles and movements that have contributed to creating positive change and furthering social justice.

 

As my father said: "We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world."

With all my best wishes,