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Curriculum specialist and writer Jeff Sapp on starting a conversation in the face of pushback and ignorance.

Teaching Tolerance has reported many times and in many ways that the United States is plunging headlong toward racial and cultural re-segregation. That process took an enormous leap in the wrong direction last week when the Wake County school board in North Carolina voted to dismantle its policy of diversifying the schools.

There is a wonderful scene in Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird where the all-white jury has returned an unjust verdict against Tom Robinson. Atticus begins to wearily walk out of the courthouse. Jem and Scout are in the balcony with the black folks of the county. They all rise as Atticus walks out—except the children—so the Rev. Sykes says to Scout, “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’.”

Working in an urban high school has many challenges. My first computer graphics class was no exception. The computers were old PCs and the software was a pared-down version of a program that had failed to meet standards of the graphic design industry. My class contained a mix of special education students and youths with a reputation for disrupting classrooms.

Raige Hollis always liked the idea of talking to classmates. In fact, he says he's "friends with everybody." So when his high school announced plans for a Mix It Up at Lunch Day, Hollis, captain of the football team and senior classman, was all in. But some of his classmates at Laconia High School in New Hampshire were less excited about sitting down to lunch with folks who were not part of their usual circles.

It happens in every class. We’re discussing a text, a publication, a current event, a poem. The content doesn’t matter. It’s the phrase that counts. A student comments and uses the phrase “African American” or even “black people.” The student is white. The reaction of the class – almost all white – is swift. As if choreographed, all eyes turn to the one student of color. The spotlight of eyes shines down and he or she blinks back as if staring into the sun. The teacher should use this moment to open a discussion.