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As a middle school student, I was perplexed by a quote by George Santayana that my history teacher posted on the wall. It read, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” As a budding history teacher, it continued to puzzle me.

As an eighth-grade writing teacher, I routinely focus on reading student writing and utilizing it for several purposes. I am designing effective lessons, creating sound rubrics for assessment, developing peer conferences and monitoring their ability to meet standards and benchmarks. However, I often forget about one of our most important, frequently overlooked roles as writing teachers: our role as listeners.

For more than 20 years, Teaching Tolerance, based in Montgomery, Ala., has worked to help educators embrace the diverse classroom. We strive toward bias-free schools. We advocate acceptance, respect, equality and safety for all students.

My journalism students were brainstorming topics for their final story projects. I urged them to come up with compelling ideas that relate to their experiences but that push deeply into national trends. “Stop letting all the midlife writers (like myself) tell your stories,” I pushed. “Tell your own.”

Teaching Tolerance recognized five outstanding educators with the first-ever Teaching Tolerance Award for Excellence in Culturally Responsive Teaching on Dec. 9th in Washington, D.C.

A teacher notes that a student looks uncharacteristically pale and avoids eye contact with her classmates. When asked privately if she’s OK, the girl bursts into tears, sharing a weekend-long saga of harsh criticism delivered via emails, chats and texts.

The explosion of news coverage over the controversial execution of Troy Davis in Georgia recently is a reminder that our students learn powerful lessons outside our classrooms. These events offer opportunities for lessons of context inside our classrooms.

Oct. 8, was a day of victory for a group of 22 Life Academy students in Oakland, Calif. They are part of a 2-year-old advocacy club called “The Real DREAM Act Movement.” Students met regularly to support in campaigning for the passage of the federal DREAM Act. After several weeks of active letter writing and campaigning, their dream had finally come true: California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law AB 131, a companion bill to AB 130, together known as the “California DREAM Act.”