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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?

B loves bugs. I met him during the first week of school as I conducted the standard assessment of how many words he could read per minute from a second-grade story. After the assessment, I gave him the customary caterpillar sticker to put on his shirt to show everyone that he was going to emerge as a great reader during his second-grade year.

The county career center in my school district boasts a 96-percent placement rate, even in these days of near double-digit unemployment. That’s because its graduates develop skills our community needs. Students build houses. They repair cars. They network computers. Whether their next step is college, an apprenticeship or immediate employment, most high school students who complete a tech school program exit with a head start toward security. If only that were true for all.

How can a student begin the walk to school with one name and arrive with another? Hear the story of "Becoming Joey," a poem by Paul Gorski, read by Gabriela Bovea.

No student is too young to participate in conversations about equality and social justice, but words are not the only means through which students can imagine a better future.

When teaching his seventh-graders about the Syrian refugee crisis, this teacher decided to step back and let his students immerse themselves in the topic.

My third-hour class was a challenge. The students were young, the class was large, and most students just needed a required fine art credit. Not great art lovers, they spent their considerable energy doing everything but their art projects.