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Protest Songs in the Classroom

A war on obesity is raging. Everyone from Jillian Michaels to Michelle Obama is calling for all Americans to lose the fat. But as doctors spend millions of dollars on fat-shaming billboards targeting children and studies proving that dieting simply doesn’t work, one might ask where does encouragement end and bullying begin?

Each March 7, Stephanie and her husband John will invite immediate family members to the house to celebrate their son, Alexander, now 3. And every year, she’ll ask people not to bring gifts, but she knows the grandparents will not listen. She will serve cake. Friends will send cards and messages of congratulations. Pictures will be taken and loaded into photo albums.

After teaching a particularly grueling class, I looked forward to the solace of my 55-minute planning period. I started to organize the black hole that is my desk and found a folded piece of notebook paper with my name, Ms. Samsa, hastily scrawled onto it.

Fifty years after the Freedom Schools of 1964, today’s Freedom Schools continue the legacy.

Young people who are overweight can face a lifetime of discrimination.

During Ramadan, some Muslim students in this educator's school spent time in the media center during lunchtime, but most suffered in the cafeteria. She and her staff worked to change that.

America’s schools are more segregated now than they were in the late 1960s.