Education Amplifier

Welcome to Education Amplifier! During a time in which certain voices want to edit history and turn a blind eye to the diversity that defines this country, we are doing the opposite.

Education Amplifier provides free artwork, lesson plans and teaching tools that help facilitate non-partisan conversations around social justice in K-12 classrooms.  

Produced with pioneers in the nonprofit space, our 15-piece content library focuses on amazing young leaders who, like your students, used the power of their imagination to make change happen in their communities around gun violence prevention, climate justice, immigration rights, LGBT justice, disability justice, and anti-racism – just to name a few! We even have a ‘masterclass’ lesson teaching your students how to make their very own movement art, which we produced with the J. Paul Getty Museum. 

So, do you want your classroom to learn how to take their place in some of the most important movements of our time? If you do, our digital teaching tools are for you! We can’t wait to see how you use them in your classroom. 

For Educators

Our teaching tools are designed to support you in teaching across the curriculum. Our multi-unit lessons consist of interdisciplinary modules ranging from 30-60 minutes in length, and are all completely free. To download our content, register today

For Parents

Our remote teaching tools are an exact mirror of our classroom lessons, but they are designed to support you in facilitating interdisciplinary learning from the home. They are also completely free. To download our content, register today.

Manifesto

We believe that in times of uncertainty—in times like these, when your students are growing up surrounded by disinformation and division—art is more than beauty or decoration: It is a weapon and a shield. Art has the power to wake people up and serve as a catalyst for real change. It is a megaphone for important but unheard voices that need amplifying. It is a bridge that can unite movements with shared values in ways other mediums cannot. Art gives us symbols to gather around, builds community, and helps us feel like we are not alone. But for all the tools art can be in this fight, for Amplifier it is a COMPASS. It points to the future we want to live in, and that we want our children to live in. If we literally hold this art and carry it in front of us, if we hang it on our walls or in our windows every day for our family and neighbors and students to see, then we remind ourselves of what we are building, and we find strength when we become tired. Our goal is to reclaim and rebuild an American identity rooted in equality, dignity, diversity, truth, and beauty. For young people who are not used to seeing themselves in history books or on the walls of classrooms, what Amplifier and its partners are distributing is more than art. These simple, yet urgent messages will be carried with them for the rest of their lives. Our hope is that these images will help young people feel represented, spoken for, and listened to, making it easier to connect to the ideas and to feel empowered to make the change they want to see in the world.

Q+A

Once you register, you’ll be sent a link to our Google Drive containing all of our 15 lessons plans as downloadable PDFs.

Education Amplifier lesson plans are accessible to and adaptable for any educator in middle and high school (grades 6 through 12). These lesson plans are an opportunity for students to join the national conversation around each issue area. However, educators at any grade level (including college) are invited to participate in the Education Amplifier program as they see fit, adapting curriculum and concepts for their students’ levels and using our free art downloads (available on this website) to spark interdisciplinary discussions around a variety of topics.

Amplifier’s 15 piece content library consists of lesson plans from the We the Future campaign, our She can STEM campaign with the Ad Council, our “In Pursuit Of__” program with the J. Paul Getty Museum, our economic justice campaign for the Opportunity Agenda, and our campaigns with IllumiNatives and Nia Tero around Indigenous leadership. We’re adding new content all the time, so be sure to register for our mailing list to stay up to date on the latest additions!

Allow students the opportunity to come up with their own conclusions about what our individual identities look like and how our differences could create a collective American identity. One of the cornerstones of American democracy is our freedom to question, criticize, and form our own opinions. Modeling this in a classroom means asking open-ended questions that pertain to the subject matter without interjecting your own opinions.

The most crucial conversations that will shape the future of America aren’t happening in the Capitol, but rather in our classrooms. Educators are informing, developing, and empowering the leaders of tomorrow. The images represented in Amplifier campaigns serve as a reminder of how our unique individual backgrounds help to create our collective identity. Appreciation and understanding of uncommon ground is even more important than the finding of common ground. These conversations in the classroom can help to promote an inclusive classroom and school culture, challenge the rising levels of intolerance and bigotry being perpetuated in the media and on school campuses, and empower the leaders of tomorrow to build an equitable society.

To create a brave space for all students to share and learn, you can co-create a list of norms with your students that will maintain a space of respect and provide opportunities to hold each other accountable. A “brave space” is an environment where students accept and celebrate difference, assume the best intentions of each other, and accept responsibility of affecting the emotional well-being of another person.

The Education Amplifier program, and Amplifier itself, are nonpartisan. None of the art or campaigns promote a specific ideological or political belief system to students. These critical conversations have been taught and promoted by both conservatives and liberals, and engage students not in a debate over politics, but instead in dialogue around human rights, respect, dignity, and resiliency.

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