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When four students showed up at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California, last week wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo, their assistant principal thought the shirts were inflammatory. He told the boys to turn them inside out or go home.

In my eighth-grade language arts classroom, we use discussion as a vehicle for learning, thinking, writing, posing and defending arguments, questioning and reviewing—just about everything. And as can be expected, we sometimes digress from the topic at hand.

Middle school teachers struggle to find ways to respond to bullying, teasing, name-calling and exclusionary practices among students. We tread lightly sometimes, afraid of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time thus making conditions worse for a bullied student. Being heavy-handed almost never works. Students also know how to say the right thing to adults and then act in a completely contrary way towards peers.

I am intellectually aware of Paola’s poverty. Nine out of 10 students at our school come from families whose income level meets the federal poverty guidelines. Paola, an immigrant from El Salvador, is one of them. The first-grader lives in a small apartment with her grandma, mom, sister and uncle. Combined, the adults earn less than $26,170 a year.

This toolkit accompanies the article “Just Science,” and provides a classroom resource to help students probe deeper to discover the social and ethical implications of topics in science.

Anti-LGBT sentiment mars a Mississippi theatrical performance.

In honor of the United Nations Decade for the Culture of Nonviolence, we offer practical ideas for making peace a priority in your classroom community.