June 14, 2012

Rethinking Schools: Teaching Cancer

Amy Lindahl, Oregon Writing Project teacher consultant, teaches biology at Grant High School in Portland. Her article, “Facing Cancer: Social Justice in Biology Class,” is the cover story for the summer issue of Rethinking Schools.

Amy Lindahl, Oregon Writing Project teacher consultant, teaches biology at Grant High School in Portland. Her article, “Facing Cancer: Social Justice in Biology Class,” is the cover story for the summer issue of Rethinking Schools.

The article is an amazing exploration of how she teaches about cancer in her biology class. She includes the impact of cancer on her students’ lives, and the environmental, social, and political realities of who gets sick and who gets treated. 

As Amy demonstrated in the Oregon Writing Project Advanced Institute a few weeks ago when she took us through an experiment on protein detection, she makes an easy marriage of science and writing. In this article, she also demonstrates what science looks like when you care about the effects of curriculum on the children you teach, when you are concerned about the world — and not just ticking off content standards. 

Click on the link above to read Amy’s article or check out the entire issue here.