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Thirty years ago, I heard the news that John Lennon had been shot. Every year since, the morning news on NPR reminds me again of that day. I was a young, second-year teacher then, with four sections of grade nine “World Cultures” and one section of A.P. United States history. Mine was a Catholic school, and we’d had Monday, December 8 off because it was a holy day, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Hundreds of high school and college students gathered around the state capitol in Phoenix, Arizona, on Friday. They were there to convince Gov. Jan Brewer to veto Senate Bill 1070. These young protesters were disappointed though. Brewer signed the bill and instantly set back relations between whites and Latinos in Arizona and other parts of the country.

Feast for 10, a children’s book by Cathryn Falwell, recently found its way into a lesson at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Cooperative Nursery School. The book, focusing on counting skills, follows a family through the

Perhaps you’ve been wondering about the long hair of the Sikh student in your classroom. Or maybe you’ve joined debates about whether your Sikh student can carry a sword in the classroom. Perhaps you’ve mistaken your Sikh student for a Muslim all along. To help prevent misunderstandings in your school, here are some facts to know about Sikhs.

On Monday, LGBT students’ rights were vindicated in a comprehensive settlement with Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District over its policies that hindered teachers from effectively responding to anti-gay bullying—policies that may have contributed to some of the district’s recent suicides. Then on Tuesday, in the afterglow of this historic victory, the Utah Senate passed its own discriminatory bill (HB 363) prohibiting educators from teaching about, or even talking about, homosexuality.

Gender-fluid young people navigate a variety of gender-specific spaces throughout their day at school. From seating charts based on gender to dress codes and roles in school activities, we ask students to put themselves