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Templates & Lessons

August 10, 2021

Start Your Back-to-School Adventure: New Activities from Facing History & Ourselves

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Pear Deck Team

Photo of students in class looking at each other and the title "Facing History & Ourselves"

Welcome back to school, educators!

We know you are hard at work preparing for another unique start to the school year and we are so grateful for every one of you.

Each year is a new adventure full of discoveries, growth, and powerful learning moments that spark joy and wonder. We believe that this journey in your classroom inspires and empowers students to solve the world’s greatest challenges — a quest that never ends!

As a guide for this year’s adventure, you’ll nurture students’ spirits of exploration, lead them to make awe-inspiring discoveries, and steer them through setbacks. But don’t worry, you’re not traveling alone. We’re here to share tools and resources with you every step of the way.

To help you and your students plan for this new journey, we’ve partnered with Facing History and Ourselves to create a collection of Pear Deck activities designed to inspire reflective goal-setting and community building for the upcoming year.

Facing History and Ourselves uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate, and we’re proud to partner with them to build free resources that you can use in your classroom.

With the back-to-school collection of Facing History and Ourselves activities powered by Pear Deck, students can reflect, ideate, and discuss what they’d like to discover this year and how they can build a welcoming environment for all students to explore together.

The collection of 24 interactive Facing History and Ourselves activities focus on:

  • Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Reflecting on last year’s learning experiences and finding positives in the disruption of “normal” learning.
  • Exploring Identity and Getting to Know Each Other: Reflecting on names and nicknames, thinking about dual identities and the relationship between names, identities, and storytelling.
  • Fostering a Community of Learners: What a community is, and what it isn’t; envisioning a classroom space where everyone belongs.
  • Opening and Closing Routines: Thinking through and establishing routines to begin and end the school day with continuity and predictability.


Explore and download these amazing classroom resources from Facing History and Ourselves in collaboration with Pear Deck, by visiting peardeck.com/facing-history-and-ourselves.

Get the Activities

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Pear Deck Team

Helping teachers deliver powerful learning moments

Pear Deck

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