Teaching Tolerance and Celebrating Diversity

This photograph depicts two children playing. One child has multiple disabilities and the other child does not.

This picture book explains the Muslim holiday Ramadan by answering the 5 Ws: who, what, where, when and why.

During World War II, a young German girl, Rose Blanche, inadvertently discovers a concentration camp not far from her town. She travels there frequently, taking food to the children on the other side of the barbed wire and meets a haunted fate the day she discovers the camp is gone.

In this poem, the speaker sees a man carrying his son across the street and is struck by the tenderness the man displays for the child. The speaker realizes that humanity must cloak itself in this same caring nature.

Which are you more likely to notice: a person’s character or his or her clothing? Hoca has a witty response when the latter is true at a dinner he attends after a day of hard work.

In this poem, the speaker addresses his father, recalling for him the lush Puerto Rican landscape that he grew up in. Now, this green can be seen only in his father's dreams.

In this poem, the speaker explores how our culture would be lacking—in people, in music, in movements, in contributions—without contributions of African Americans.

This story speaks of the importance of giving. When hard times fall on his land, Buddha reaches out to the wealthy, asking them to help feed the poor. The rich people grumble and refuse until a young, well-to-do girl steps forward and offers to take her bowl from house-to-house to be filled for those less fortunate than herself. Supriya succeeds and many in the land fill her bowl and their own to give to the poor.

Katherine Scholes begins this informative piece by describing the multi-facted nature of the word "peace" and what it can mean to different people at different times. Then she provides concrete ways that each of us can be a peacemaker.

After spending months talking to women in Afghan refugee camps, Deborah Ellis penned this timely novel about life under Taliban rule. Living in Afghanistan with her family, Parvana is a rarity—a girl who can read and experiences life, even for just a few hours, outside the four walls of her home.

A story from Hawaii about how it's better to share and cooperate than squabble and fight.

In this excerpt, the reader meets two characters from The Misfits: Addie, a girl who is exceptionally tall and smart for a middle schooler and Joe, who is creative and feminine in a way that makes his peers nervous.

Maleeka gets made fun of at school about her clothes, her grades, even the color of her skin. In this chapter, she talks about getting teased on a school trip and how even her friend Char was ashamed to be seen with her because of her clothes.

After her father's death, Esperanza and her mother are left with few options and forced to flee to America. The immigration officers are only the first obstacle they must face. Beyond them, the Great Depression and an uncertain future awaits.

Because Najeeb Abreely remembers what it was like to emigrate to America, he can soothe the fears of frightened immigrants he must now inspect and question.

This excerpt explains that families are defined by love, caring and sharing, not the number or gender of its members.

This story, illustrated by Don Kilpatrick, describes a group of people who immigrated from Germany to the United States in order to seek religious asylum and practice their way of life in peace, but were met by continued persecution, which only escalated when World War I broke out.

Mari and her family have been sent to an internment camp in Utah. She does not understand what they have done to deserve their internment and longs for her backyard in California where she used to grow sunflowers.

In this excerpt, Garang tells his story of how he became a lost boy when war destroyed his village. Walking with thousands of other orphaned boys, Garang travels thousands of dangerous miles from southern Sudan to a refugee camp in Ethiopia.

These creation myths, from two different cultures, consider how the world came to be.

In this cartoon, people of all sexes, ages, shapes and sizes are lined up outside the Gospel Mission, waiting for food. A mother in line remarks that they donated to this Mission just last year, inciting the feeling that circumstances can quickly change.

“Connected to Everything” is a story written by Jennifer Greene and published in the Fall 2009 issue of Teaching Tolerance. This story is adapted from a traditional tale of the Bitterroot Salish, a Native American tribe in Montana.

Two male penguins finally get the egg they've been hoping for—based on a true story.

As a young Muslim girl, Zahrah wore her hijab to school on what is considered to be the most important day of the week in Islam—Friday. Not everyone at Zahrah's school understands her religious traditions, but a visit from her mom changes this.

In their trek from Mexico to the U.S. border, this young group is reminded that dangers lurk beneath them and hang over their heads every day and every night.

“He said, 'When the border patrol changes shifts, you're going to run.'”

“Every brain is a little bit different...”

“I wasn't like other kids.”

“What was the saddest moment of your life?”

“The only way that I could see out of that situation was to take my life.”

The novel's main character, Joey, is introduced in this excerpt. Joey is full of spunk, but he also has trouble focusing and controlling all of his urges—which sometimes leads him to make bad choices.

This cartoon eye chart tests for perfect vision, which sees beyond stereotypes and bias and encourages a lens of compassion.

Felipe Morales' telling account of an encounter with a blind woman on the streets of Washington, D.C. was recorded for This I Believe. The NPR project features brief personal essays in which people from diverse backgrounds discuss how their values affect their daily lives.