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When “This is stupid!” means “I need help.”

Is Beyoncé—or any pop culture icon—someone we should discuss with our students?

John was in my eighth-grade class. He was a rascal and my favorite kind of student. He was rambunctious and smart as a whip. And he and his family lived in poverty. His favorite memory of middle school is when I gave him detention time after school. “Why’d I get this?” he exclaimed. “Because you’ve racked up four deductions for talking and disrupting class,” I calmly said. He looked down at the detention slip, “Well, OK then.” It’s one of our favorite stories.

It is not easy for my students in suburban St. Louis to connect with the characters in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. The novel is packed with gruff men. Middle aged, mostly friendless, they are all struggling to eke out an income on a ranch somewhere in California. The one glimmer of hope in Steinbeck’s classic emerges through the relationship between two men—George and Lennie. They are not relatives. Yet in a society where individualism is paramount, George does far more than merely put up with Lennie. He cares for this mentally challenged man, blankets him with a protective shield. Other characters turn from, threaten, and even belittle Lennie. Most are astounded by George’s choice to attend to someone who seems like such a burden.

A web exclusive for "Dancing with Languages," from the September 2008 issue of Teaching Tolerance magazine.

On a recent field trip, I found Nashley and Bersabeh in a quiet corner of the library, sharing both a chair and a book. For an English teacher, this scene is pure gold: two ninth-graders, becoming friends, in the library, reading a book. I snapped a photo before squealing my delight. Then, I crouched down next to them to find out more about what they were reading.

Forty percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago, according to a Gallup poll released late last week. In other words, they subscribe to creationism.

A parent of a first-grader tried to wrangle her child from peering into my classroom. “He just can’t wait to be in middle school! He thinks your students are rock stars,” she said. Peter isn’t the only young student who stops by each morning to greet the older kids. And the enthusiasm goes both ways.

On a recent rainy afternoon, our 20 kindergarteners were kept indoors for playtime. I stood near a group of four children stringing beads for bracelets and necklaces. Levi explained he was making a bracelet for his daddy. The child next to him, Catherine, blurted out angrily, “I hate daddies!” Levi searched for words, looked at Catherine and asked, “Why do you hate daddies?” He repeated it a few times. “I don’t have a daddy,” Catherine replied. “I hate daddies.”