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The time had come. It was Dec. 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on the Montgomery public bus. This act led to Parks’ arrest, ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott and ushered in the new civil rights movement.

My students are too young to remember the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Just four years before their birth, they refer to them as something from “back in the day.”But the themes of police brutality, poverty and racism are all too familiar. And most drew an immediate connection between the Rodney King verdict that sparked those riots and the 2009 fatal shooting of Oscar Grant. Grant was shot in the back by Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle less than one mile from our school in Oakland.

Yesterday, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly appeared on the television show The View. There, he got into a heated discussion about building a mosque in lower Manhattan near Ground Zero with Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar. They eventually walked off the set in disgust.This morning on Fox & Friends, host Brian Kilmeade decided to weigh in on the matter, predictably calling Goldberg and Behar cowards. He then added, “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.” Later, on his radio show, Kilmeade said that this was simply a “fact.”

This year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was clearly a disaster for the environment. But it has also been a disaster for people, and it did not affect everyone equally.

“Will we be learning history from a biblical or counter-biblical perspective?” James asked. I could see an intense honesty in his eyes, one that I’m pretty sure only teachers know. It was another one of those moments

A new study proves what many already suspected: Your chances of getting suspended in middle school rise dramatically if you are black. The study, “Suspended Education: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis,” was published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the home of Teaching Tolerance.

Last week, Teaching Tolerance ran a post from an assistant principal in Illinois. Lamenting the recent spate of anti-Islamic incidents and the rising anti-Muslim rhetoric, she wrote:I immediately wondered how to tackle this head-on as an educator. What would I say to my teachers about how to approach the subject in our history classes? How could I be a participant in a difficult conversation in which some of our Muslim students are directly affected?

In recent weeks, our country has been treated to an ugly reflection of itself. The controversy over the Islamic community center in New York City has been followed by a spate of anti-Muslim acts. They include the stabbing of a Muslim cabbie, attempted arson at a mosque in Tennessee and teens harassing Muslims at worship in upstate New York.

Computers and the Internet help rural schools bridge vast distances—both geographically and culturally. But the growing use of technology can create new problems as it solves old ones.

Rural educators face just as many challenges as urban colleagues when it comes to helping children of color. But there are tools to help them.