Articles

This teacher helps students find commonalities between their own complex lives and the experiences of children a world away.

The confluence of President Obama’s second inauguration and MLK Day is a fitting legacy and inspiration to continue making changes.

Best Practices // Engaging Limited English Proficient Students and Families

Protest Songs in the Classroom

Based on the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Schools, modern-day programs educate and empower students.

Picture books can help 5-year-olds explore social justice topics and nonviolence. The resulting discussion is the start of a peace curriculum.

I am in awe of young people. Today, for example, I read about a group of teens in Louisville, Ky. who continued to speak on LGBT issues. High school students from duPont Manual High School were censored for writing about gay issues, but they refused to let their voices be silenced. They decided to run an underground paper, The Red Pen, and won the annual Courage in Student Journalism Award.

Let’s talk about voting. Yesterday, we asked our 65,000 Facebook followers if they had held mock elections in their schools. We heard from one lone voice that reported her middle school had 100 percent turnout.

My third-hour class was a challenge. The students were young, the class was large, and most students just needed a required fine art credit. Not great art lovers, they spent their considerable energy doing everything but their art projects.

My parents stopped patronizing our local cinema when I was a child because they were livid when the theater owner demanded to see a copy of my birth certificate as proof that I could pay the child admission price. The boycott lasted six years. Although it satisfied my mother’s desire to “not give that theater” her money, the theater’s business didn’t crumble. I am not sure it prevented the theater’s management from treating another young girl the same way.