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A city seeks to heal its history of racial violence.

Words can shed light or generate heat. This week, in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, there’s been a lot of talk about talk and the nature of our civil discourse.

In recent weeks, our country has been treated to an ugly reflection of itself. The controversy over the Islamic community center in New York City has been followed by a spate of anti-Muslim acts. They include the stabbing of a Muslim cabbie, attempted arson at a mosque in Tennessee and teens harassing Muslims at worship in upstate New York.

When four students showed up at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California, last week wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo, their assistant principal thought the shirts were inflammatory. He told the boys to turn them inside out or go home.

I love my neighborhood. On any given morning at the bus stop, I hear five different languages being spoken. While the words and sounds are different, the context is the same.

The year I taught art in the dysfunctional chaos of an overcrowded urban middle school with weak administrators, practically everyone in the school—both students and teachers—needed a "safe place."

Last weekend, the Southern Poverty Law Center and two partners struck a legal agreement with the Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota. Amid revolution in Egypt and fears of a monster snowstorm in the Midwest, this was hardly top-shelf news. But the agreement really was a big deal for LGBT students.

Man, am I just a total killjoy? I struggled today with a decision whether or not to dress up for Spirit Week. Monday was Crazy Sock Day; Tuesday, crazy shoes. Yesterday was Crazy Tie Day. All of those I could absolutely get behind. But I wasn’t so excited by the plan for Thursday—“Nerd Day.”

My student was trying to act like he wasn’t smart. He told his parents that being smart meant not having cool friends. When test time came, he simply made random patterns with the bubbles on his standardized test, scoring one of the lowest scores in the sixth-grade class. The following year, he made a fresh start by earning one of the highest scores on the pretest. I knew I was in for a fight or, rather, a battle that would culminate with a full-on war to maintain. One I hoped to win.

Today I went to an individualized educational plan (IEP) meeting for one of my middle school students. The parent reported that her son “is constantly being bullied at school." She said he is being harassed by other students because of his disability. It happens before and after school. Once, students stole his hat and put it in the trash. Another time, they took his water bottle and put sand in it.