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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.

Students can learn about local struggles for justice through primary sources. This toolkit will help you collaborate with staff at a local library or archive to locate primary sources that teach your students about their community’s history.

As the instructor of Human Relations and South Dakota Indian Studies classes, I am beaming with pride that our university students choose to tutor K-12 American Indian students. Not only do the pre-service teacher education majors gain valuable experiences with one-on-one tutoring, but as an added benefit, the academic achievement of the K-12 students is improving.

This past spring, one of my friends at Hardin County High School in Savannah, Tenn. wore a T-shirt on the Day of Silence – a national observance to raise awareness of anti-gay bullying and harassment. Her shirt displayed the slogan, "Lesbian and Proud."

Earth Day is still two months away, but it's not too early to start planning an event that highlights the importance of preserving the natural world—and that can draw the school and larger community together.

As a child I asked my father whether there was someone like Martin Luther King Jr. who had fought for Latino rights. “Yes,” he said, and told me that his name was César Chávez. My father, a former farmworker who had toiled in the agricultural fields from childhood until adulthood, taught me about César Chávez, Dolores Huerta and the farmworker struggle.

Field trips can be a great opportunity to take critical literacy to a new level. This toolkit will help you prepare your students to take on social justice issues on trips.

During my first year as a second-grade teacher, I struggled with classroom management. I am a soft-spoken person by nature and habit. I didn't have the experience to help me set up great rules and procedures for my students. My classroom was noisy and chaotic. I think you could hear us all around the school.

Using activist memoirs can help students understand how people effected change in the past—and how young people can effect change now.

One of my fondest and most salient memories from the past school year happened toward the beginning of the year. Joe had just turned 5. He was making his own book about pirates.