Dear Friend,
This year, the Pulitzer Center’s K-12 education programs connected over 24,000 students and teachers with underreported global news stories and the journalists who cover them. Our education programs are central to our mission of extending the impact of journalism and cultivating a more curious, informed, empathetic, and engaged public through the next generation.
Our Virtual Journalist Visit program connects students worldwide with Pulitzer Center journalists and staff, helping to build trust in, and an appreciation of journalism. In 2022, students explored reporting by over 70 journalists covering the most critical global issues of our time, including migration, voting rights, global health, land rights, and climate change.
Some 2,000 students honed their writing, photography, and video skills in Center-led workshops. 3,000 more took action by contributing work to our student writing contests, and researching local and global issues as part of unit plans developed by their teachers in our Teacher Fellowship program. BuzzFeed News published an interview with Fighting Words student poetry contest winner Jamar Jackson, whose poem, “One Bullet, One Hundred Sets of Hands,” was written in response to a Center-supported story on the economic and psychological cost of gun violence.
Closing out its second year, The 1619 Project Network program continues to connect teachers and students across 28 states and Washington, D.C., with crucial history. Network outreach has expanded, as alumni from our Education Network and Afterschool Partnership programs became education partners in teaching hard history, culturally responsive pedagogy, and intentional curriculum. Over a dozen professional development workshops reached more than 1,000 teachers this year.
“This program completely elevated my own understanding of underreported stories and how to integrate them into the classroom.”
-Dani McCormick, 2021-2022 Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellow
Additional virtual and in-person workshops led by our staff and journalists introduced educators to techniques for integrating journalism skills and global news into multidisciplinary curricula. This year’s Teacher Fellowship focused on “Journalism and Justice: Elevating Underreported Stories in the Classroom," and resulted in 22 free lesson plans that were ultimately shared with over 1,600 students in ten states.
Feedback from our educator community also led to the launch of our monthly “Beyond the Headlines” lesson plan series, which model methods for engaging students in the underreported issues related to breaking news topics such as the World Cup and protests by youth and women in Iran.
Support our mission of informing and engaging the next generation of changemakers to shape a more curious and empathetic world. Make a year-end gift to the Pulitzer Center today.
With gratitude,
