Educators for Social Responsibility

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As a leading national center for teaching about conflict and social responsibility, Educators for Social Responsibility (ESR) has been providing effective and credible resources for teaching important current issues for over 20 years. The Online Teacher Center provides teaching resources on a range of issues related to international security, conflict resolution, peacemaking, violence prevention, and social responsibility.

The ESR site offers ready to use lesson plans, teacher guides, and links to further resources at the Online Teacher Center. To view all these materials, a short, free registration is required. The guides provide information on how to teach controversial issues at all grade levels, and how to discuss topics such as war, violence, and natural disasters with children. Lesson plans and activities can be searched by topic and grade level, and cover issues such as media literacy, building community, conflict resolution, international conflict, human rights, understanding others, war, and religion. Lesson plans include handouts, step-by-step instructions, and learning objectives.

Another section of the site that provides resources for immediate use in the classroom is Special Projects: Understanding World Events. This section includes lesson plans on the US Patriot Act, human rights, and due process as it relates to Guantanamo Bay. It also includes lessons and resources for helping students understand, discuss, and analyze war, and understand the current crises in Iraq, the Middle East, and North Korea. There are lessons and resources to help students recognize and stop discrimination, with specific attention given to discrimination against Arabs and Muslims, and a section on analyzing 9/11 and its long-term impacts.