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Yesterday, you needed to reassure your students and keep them safe. Today, you need to tell them the truth: Everything is not OK. We have work to do, and we can do it.

n. pl. Children’s dictionaries have the power to shape how kids see the world. Be sure yours promotes tolerance.

The editor of Teaching Tolerance explores the ins and outs of social boundaries at school.

A couple of years ago, an acquaintance who worked at the local college where I was teaching had trouble sending and receiving emails. She couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out why. Then an IT administrator clued her in: Her first name—Gay—triggered the school’s Internet filters. They were set to block any references to homosexuality, gender identity, etc.

Forty percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago, according to a Gallup poll released late last week. In other words, they subscribe to creationism.

Every school day just after 2 p.m., Sandra pushes her cart into my classroom to clean the bathroom and empty the trash cans. She is the school custodian and my students love her. When students hear her squeaky wheels in the hallway outside our door, they listen for her kind giggle as she enters the room. "Ms. Sandra! Ms. Sandra! Can I help you empty the trash? Can I help you?" they yell out with their hands waving in the air.

Slavery never went away, and students need to know how it affects today’s world.

It was meet-the-teacher night at my elementary school. The room was ready for a new class of second-graders. The rubric for grading paragraphs and stories was on the wall around the writing center. A scientific method poster hung on the wall in the science corner. Essential questions for numbers and operations were on the chalkboard in the math area. And a picture commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education was on the social studies wall. I was ready to help my children become successful students.