Free professional development workshop for educators. Online via Zoom.

Advance registration required. Register here.

Are you interested in exploring the history and present-day impact of incarceration with your classroom? Do you want to equip yourself with the resources necessary to convene complex conversations about the justice system and its impact?

Engage with fellow educators at one (or all) of our four Teachbacks for 2025 — 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.

Friday, March 14, 2025 — 5:00-6:30 pm ET

Guest Speaker & Topic: Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Ph.D. (Director of Research, The Sentencing Project) — The Second Look Movement: Ending Mass Incarceration Requires Ending Life Imprisonment

Featured Educator: Kim Walker (Social Studies, Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School)

Click here to register.

Open to all educators. All participants will receive copies of teaching materials. Pennsylvania-based teachers will also receive Act 48 credit.

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Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Ph.D. is the Director of Research at The Sentencing Project. She conducts and synthesizes research on criminal legal policies, with a focus on racial disparities, lengthy sentences, and the scope of reform efforts. Her report, “A Second Look at Injustice,” helped to lay the groundwork for a growing, powerful tool to curb mass incarceration: second look policies that enable extreme sentences to be re-evaluated. She has advised and testified in support of proposed second look legislation in New York, Illinois, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Washington, DC. She also supports the implementation of these reforms through her work with the Second Look Network, a coalition of attorneys providing direct legal representation to tackle extreme sentences. Dr. Ghandnoosh regularly presents to academic, practitioner, and general audiences and her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and WNYC’s On the Media. She serves on the District of Columbia Sentencing Commission. Dr. Ghandnoosh earned a doctorate in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles and an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation, “Challenging Mass Incarceration: A California Group's Advocacy for the Parole Release Life Term-to-Life Prisoners," was an in-depth study of a South Los Angeles-based group challenging life imprisonment.

Kim Walker is an educator at Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School where she teaches a variety of social studies subjects including African American History, U.S. History, and Social Science.