Timely resources to help K-12 educators encourage social responsibility and foster social & emotional learning. Find out more.
TeachableMoment Lessons
Featured Lessons
This two-part lesson consists of two readings on the efforts to confront mental health stigma in the United States. Each reading is followed by a post-reading microlab activity where students discuss mental health issues in their own lives with their peers.
Nine suggestions for supporting students and strengthening your classroom community in these challenging times. Some are quick and easy, to calm the mind and body, keep in your pocket and have at the ready. Others are more complex for a full- or half-period lesson, and can build on one another.
In the wake of the 2024 presidential election, educators are looking for ways to address students' anxieties, build the classroom and school community, counter bias and harassment, and address political issues raised by the election.
SEL & RP
Activities to support students' social and emotional learning and restorative practices
Current Issues
Classroom activities to engage students in learning about and discussing issues in the news
Tips & Ideas
Guidance and inspiration to help build skills and community in your classroom and school
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These guidelines provide helpful suggestions for discussing upsetting issues in the news.
In this circle activity, students share their thoughts and feelings about events in Ferguson and reflect on a quote about protest from Martin Luther King Jr.
In this brief activity, students share their thoughts and feelings about the grand jury's decision not to indict the police officer who killed unarmed black teen Michael Brown in
The world's richest 85 people have as much wealth as half the people on earth. Students develop graphics or concepts to demonstrate this extreme inequality, express their thoughts
In this lesson, students learn about a performance art piece by Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz that dramatizes her reactions to the handling of her campus sexual
This circle activity invites students to share their feelings about gratitude and to express gratitude for things large and small.
Twenty-five years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, students learn about the wall's rise and fall, and consider the legacy of the Cold War. (See also our companion lesson on
In small and large group reading and discussion, students consider the U.S. response to Ebola and the need to develop a sense of our interconnectness and responsibility to each
This lesson provides factual information to students about Ebola. Providing accurate information about the disease may help prevent misinformed students from targeting classmates
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This lesson has students look at the devastating impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico, and consider how around the world, people with the fewest resources are most at risk from
Students learn some facts about our healthcare system,and discuss Republicans' unsuccessful efforts (so far) to roll back Obamacare. The activity includes a quiz, review of key
This activity uses a circle to help students process the many disasters that have struck people around the world in the summer and fall of 2017. It includes a more extended process
Critics charge that the real goal of a new federal commission to investigate voter fraud is to justify efforts to make it more difficult for people of color to vote. Students
In two readings and discussion, students explore the meaning and history of DACA, including the social movement activism that won DACA during the Obama years and prospects for
In this activity, students watch a video about responses to the Trump administration’s decision to roll back this Obama–era program, which has allowed young undocumented