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As a fourth-grade teacher, sometimes I feel like the social director on a cruise ship. On the playground, I try to match up students with peers. “Why don’t you go and see what Alanna is doing?” Or sometimes, “It looks like Daniel and Hunter are having fun playing tag—let’s practice how you could go and ask them if you can join in.” Then in the classroom, I pair students up to accomplish tasks. “Melanie and Jorge, you’ll be working together to read for science today.”

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me." I was sitting outside on the playground bench wiping the tears of a child when this proverb came to mind. It isn’t true, of course. Nancy was a second-grader going through an evaluation process to help us understand why she couldn't read. Kayla was one of her classmates. As they were climbing the ladder of the slide, Kayla yelled out, "Nancy is retarded!" Ouch. Words can break our hearts.

U.S. public schools are not branch offices of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That’s the message the Obama administration sent out in a letter to the nation’s school districts last week.

“All these kids … you must be brave,” said the man in hiking gear. After a sunny but cold day on the beach punctuated by a trudge through sandpaper wind, I was plodding downhill with the stragglers from my hiking group. The more energetic among them galloped to the end, past the curious hiker.

May 31 marks the anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Here's why this history must be told.