Search

I love to receive letters. When I was a little boy, I lived on a straight street where I could see the mail truck coming from a long way off. After the mailman stopped in front of our house, I ran with hope in my heart down our front walkway, between our two giant maple trees and across the street to our mailbox. Would there be a letter for me? Was someone in the world thinking of me?

I'm a middle school English teacher. If any of my former teachers are reading this, they will (a) be shocked I'm entrusted with our future generation, (b) question what happened to the character-education movement, or (c) ask how I made it past high school.When I was a student in middle school, life seemed to be an endless maze of getting to class on time, getting homework done on time or trying to fit in somewhere. There was the added problem of not wanting to wear my Coke bottle-thick glasses. It didn't help my self-image knowing every night I had to attach my braces to a medieval torture device known as headgear. To this day I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy those awkward middle school years of being laughed at, picked on, and socially lost.

I felt myself straighten in my chair. I quickly shook off the tiredness of a long day of teaching when our professor explained most of us found it difficult to understand multicultural education “because our viewpoint was that of the white, upper middle class.”

Every year our school conducts what has come to be known as “The Bully Poll.” Teaching Tolerance also offers an activity to open the discussion about bullying. Our poll is an anonymous questionnaire that enables the students to answer questions openly and honestly about incidents of bullying in our school. Where does bullying most often occur? What do you think about the way in which the school handles bullying? Who is the biggest bully?

Sometimes teaching at my magnet arts school in Alabama, I can imagine the worst days of racism and intolerance are behind us. Most of the roughly 500 students have genuine, deep friendships across racial lines and very rarely do the old racist memes and tropes raise their ugly heads.

When her third-grade students hit a research obstacle, Syrita Jackson made the call—literally—to teach a point about perseverance.

I decided not to leave a phone message. As my mind began racing through what I wanted to say in an email instead, I thought about my dual roles in school. As a teacher for more than 20 years, I have confidence that schools and teachers are there to help, support and build a relationship with parents. But as a parent, faced with having to speak to my child’s teacher, I froze.

Camilla was drawing a doll she was planning to get with her parents over the weekend. She was talking to herself in sing-song tones as she drew the doll, some of her clothes and her own house. Across the table sat Tommy; he heard Camilla talking about the doll she was about to get. He exclaimed, almost as joyfully, “Hey! I’m going to get a doll too!” The two began to chat about the types of dolls they were going to get. Across the room, another boy, busily building with blocks, said in a voice that reached across the room, “You are getting a doll?” A look of confusion spread across his face.

Affordable ways to build positive school climate.