Resources for Teaching About Haiti

Skim the news, and what you'll frequently hear about Haiti is focused on poverty, "looters," and Haiti's "inability" to take care of itself. You don't hear much about the U.S.'s involvement in Haiti, or about the Haitian Revolution of the 18th century, in which Haitians freed themselves from slavery, or about the underlying reasons for the wrecked government, inadequate infrastructure and mass poverty.

To help educators provide students with an opportunity to dig deeper into the history, culture and issues surrounding Haiti, Teaching for Change has put together a list of useful resources, including a teaching guide (which includes some outdated material, but plenty of useful information), suggested books, and other teaching resources.

The New York Times has also put together some suggested resources for exploring issues surrounding Haiti (mainly repackaging their stories to fit different topics), as well as an article called "5 Ways to Teach About Haiti Right Now."

And, vlogger Jay Smooth of Ill Doctrine has a done nice, brief thought-piece on Haiti, which serves as a great springboard for discussion. You can see it here:



Update: I just found a great commentary by Amy Wilentz which criticizes several news stories and commentaries about Haiti and offers her own views on the situation. This is a great piece to use for encouraging an analysis of the reporting and commentary on Haiti to look for biases, themes, misinformation, missing information, etc.


~ Marsha

Image courtesy of United Nations Development Programme via Creative Commons.


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