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Creating safe spaces for LGBT students and their allies is crucial, and hosting a GSA Day is one step toward that safety. Find out how Oakland Unified School District got it done.

A simple statement at the start of the academic year or semester can help students with post-traumatic stress disorder approach potentially triggering material on their own terms.

Introducing the Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards.

This teacher was worried about explaining her crutches to her class, but the third-graders taught her a lesson in acceptance.

What keeps Michelle Spathelf in the classroom? Giving truant teenagers—and their families—hope.

It can be daunting but also amusing to set the context for Harper Lee’s classic To Kill A Mockingbird. If my students thought the 1992 L.A. Riots were “back in the day,” imagine how long ago the 1930’s feel to them. Not only that, but when I refer to the southern United States, several of them think I really mean “a place near L.A.”To conquer this, we spent a period locating Alabama on the map, sipping sweet southern tea and checking out Dorothea Lange’s Depression-era photos. I even play a compilation of tunes that were popular then, including A Tisket, A Tasket by Ella Fitzgerald. Overall, we have fun as we look back.

Jeanette Winterson, author and poet, once said, “Books communicate ideas and make bridges between people.” As a middle school language arts teacher, I believed in this theory but wanted to see it in action. When I suggested to my principal that I would like to organize a book club with my students and local senior citizens, he was cautiously intrigued by the idea.