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Five years after the tragedy that shook our nation, the people of Columbine High School reflect on growth and healing.

American schools are resegregating. What's happening in your community?

Scattered across the cinderblocks of our middle school walls are some new faces, photographs of kids who have been silenced. Lee Simpson on Oct. 10, 2008. Scotty Weaver on July 22, 2004. Lawrence King on Feb. 12, 2008. Carl Walker-Hoover on April 9, 2009. All silent. They are dead.

I hate sheet protectors. Those shiny, clear plastic sheaths have no place in my classroom. When my new ninth-graders hand in their summer reading logs each September, the first thing I do is remove and return all the sheet protectors. They make it impossible for me to maintain my neat stacks of student work. They don’t quite fit into the file folders I use to transport those stacks home to grade them. I have to remove them before I can write any feedback.

A few years ago, a picture from The Roanoke Times became the fodder for emails and blog posts. It spread across the Internet in a matter of days, eventually ending up on late-night network talk shows. It began as part of a simple and obscure local news story about road construction. In the article, a pregnant woman in her 30s wondered what effect the high decibel sounds of jackhammers and earth-moving equipment would have on her unborn child. What made this conjecture so worthy of scorn and mockery?

Dispelling stigma allows young people to get the mental health support they need.

Students struggle to find a way forward after their classroom’s election.

Every week I write a quotation on the board and ask my students to write responses to it in their journals. One of our favorite quotes is by William Butler Yeats: "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." This quote aptly captures the reason why I teach. A group of minds in a room–thinking through problems together–can generate amazing heat and ignite a fire.