Articles

More than 60,000 youth are confined in 2,500 juvenile justice facilities in the United States every year. This toolkit provides a snapshot of effective practices used by educators who work in locked facilities—with application in other educational settings.

As “Girls, Interrupted” documents, girls now account for 30 percent of juvenile arrests and 15 percent of juvenile incarceration—making them the fastest-growing demographic in the juvenile justice system. But they are the least talked about. This toolkit offers a list of resources that educators can consult to expand their knowledge about at-risk girls and build gender-responsive practices to support their needs.

On Feb. 10, 2015, three Muslim university students of Arab descent were shot and killed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, leaving an educational community shocked and reeling. Criticisms quickly surfaced in the United States and internationally that many U.S. media organizations did not adequately cover this horrific crime or its aftermath. This toolkit offers a media literacy activity that educators can use to explore these topics with students.

Editor’s note: The author of this essay prefers the pronoun they. In a poignant letter to their teenage self, Jey Ehrenhalt—a transgender educator and advocate—recalls jarring and painful experiences of their youth and describes how many schools urgently need to become more welcoming and supportive places for transgender students.

Educators can use this toolkit to reflect on school-based policing in their schools and districts and to conduct a school climate survey among colleagues.

Challenges to school names that no longer represent community values are being heard throughout the South. In this toolkit, students will consider the complexities of naming and name changes and explore a strategy for convincing decision-makers that such changes are needed.

“Introducing Gender: Girls, Boys and More!” is a K-2 lesson from Gender Spectrum originally published in The Gender Inclusive School: concrete strategies for creating a safer and more accepting school climate for all students. The lesson offers a set of activities that prompt students to think about what they like (favorite colors, toys, activities) as individual preferences—not due to them being a boy or girl.

This toolkit provides resources and suggestions for educators who may be experiencing bullying at work or supporting someone who is. It also outlines a possible structure for creating a workplace civility task force within a school setting.

As an antidote to implicit bias and stereotype threat, educators can build identity-safe classrooms and schools.

When two American Studies teachers combined their classes to discuss school integration, they fostered a depth of learning they never anticipated.