Jacob Goodwin ’21 (New England, Certificate in Educational Leadership) will publish his first book, Teach Like a Community Organizer: Practical Tools for Community-Building, Civic Engagement, and Progressive Change, on April 8, 2026. The book is an invitation for teachers to engage with their students in the “world as it is.” When you teach like a community organizer, you help students notice the world as it is, imagine the world as it should be, and work to close the gap between the two. With this book, teachers will be able to develop the mindset of a community organizer, apply organizing concepts in the classroom, identify ways to support progressive change in their own schools and communities, and take action to bring democratic practices to their work.
Goodwin is a social studies educator with more than a decade of experience in public schools. A 2015 James Madison Memorial Fellow, he was recognized in 2021 as the New Hampshire History Teacher of the Year. In 2023, he was named a Progressive Education Fellow for his advocacy for public schools and was one of twenty teachers nationwide selected for the Peace Teacher Program at the United States Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan, independent institute founded by Congress to help prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflicts. Goodwin has also been honored as an Innovator in Civic Education Fellow by the David Mathews Center for Civic Life.
