Free professional development workshop for educators. Online via Zoom.

Advance registration required. Register here.

This educational session is designed to spark meaningful discussions on justice, labor, and civic engagement. This program aligns with civics and social studies themes and offers an opportunity to engage students in thought-provoking conversations. 

Jennifer Turner (Principal Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program) will offer expert insights and research covering the complexities of prison labor and its broader impact on society. Kim Barben (Great Valley High School) will provide tools to enrich your curriculum sharing parts of a high school unit inspired by the ACLU’s research that exploring prison labor. Her materials provide historical context, while encouraging students to examine its economic, legal, and ethical implications. In addition, members of Eastern State's education team will lead an interactive activity focused on the symbol of "Lady Justice," sparking conversations about fairness in today’s society and how to make these themes relevant to students.

This Teachback is designed to equip educators with valuable content that can be integrated into classroom discussions and help students critically analyze important social issues.

Open to all educators. All participants will receive copies of teaching materials. Pennsylvania-based teachers will also receive Act 48 credit. Please register online in advance if you plan on attending.

About Teachbacks:

Engage with fellow educators at Eastern State Teachbacks — professional development opportunities made for teachers, led by teachers. Each Teachback features a presentation by a special guest speaker, an activity led by an Eastern State educator, and a classroom lesson discussion facilitated by educators who participated in Eastern State's Summer Teacher Institute. These workshops are designed for educators of all subjects who want to engage students in meaningful discussions about justice. Participating educators will leave with practical resources and strategies to incorporate these important topics into their teaching. Pennsylvania-based teachers also receive Act 48 credit. Learn more here.

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Jennifer Turner is the Principal Human Rights Researcher in the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)'s Human Rights Program. For more than 17 years, she has conducted documentation research and advocacy on human rights violations in the United States, with a focus on the criminal legal system, policing, economic injustice, and racial injustice in the United States. She led a multi-year human rights investigation on incarcerated labor and is the primary author of Captive Labor, a report co-published by the ACLU and the Global Human Rights Clinic of the University of Chicago Law School documenting the exploitation of incarcerated workers. She has authored, co-authored, developed, and supervised numerous additional ACLU human rights fact-finding reports on topics such as the criminalization of private debt, life without parole sentences, police brutality, probation and parole systems, disenfranchisement of people with felony convictions, and the health impacts of less-lethal weapons, among other subjects.

She has testified in Congress, spoken at Hill briefings, worked in coalition to pursue legislative and executive agency reforms at the federal and state levels, conducted advocacy meetings with White House and Department of Justice officials, and briefed state attorneys general and court rules committees. She also carries out advocacy before the U.N. Human Rights Council, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and serves as an ACLU representative to the International Network of Civil Liberties Associations. Prior to joining the ACLU, Jennifer was a fellow in the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. She has also worked in the asylum program of Human Rights First assisting refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. to obtain pro bono legal representation. Jennifer is a graduate of Yale University and New York University Law School, where she was a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar.

Kim Barben currently teaches for Great Valley High School (Malvern, PA) and has taught high school Social Studies for 31 years. She attended Millersville University for her undergraduate degree in Social Studies Secondary Education and earned her master’s from St. Joseph’s University in Reading Education. Over the years, Kim has taught a variety of subjects, including World History, Global Studies, European History, American History, and Sociology. It is in the past six years of teaching AP U.S. Government and Politics and Government and Economics that she discovered a true passion for the study of Government, which led her to work with the National Constitution Center.

Lately, Kim enjoys working with the National Constitution Center, attending professional development programs during the school year and in the summers since 2021 and participating as amember of their Teacher Advisory Council. Kim is proud and honored that the National Constitution Center selected her and her AP students to represent their Civil Dialogue and Constitutional Conversations training in the Spring of 2022 in an Associated Press article and to recently have her work in AP classes discussed and spotlighted in a Civics 101 Podcast. Kim’s enthusiasm for civics education and the empowerment of her students as citizens and future voters continues to be a driving force in her classroom.