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Challenging regional bias in the classroom is important.

A hunger project moves California students from indifference to activism.

There are some new labels kids have created for one another since I was in school. When I grew up, there were no skaters or noobs. No one was goth or emo. In my day, kids who wore collared shirts and madras were preppy. Kids who smoked cigarettes and listened to Led Zeppelin were burnouts. Jocks were still jocks, although the jocks of my youth were all-inclusive. Today, they separate themselves by sport.

Words meant to inspire can have the opposite effect. This teacher looks for a new way to talk about teaching.

In classrooms all over the country, posters hang on walls bearing the face of Martin Luther King, Jr. Libraries put out displays of books about his life. Bulletin boards are decorated with phrases from famous speeches. Many will remain up throughout the school year, not just for the federal observance of King’s birthday on Monday.

Thirty years ago, I heard the news that John Lennon had been shot. Every year since, the morning news on NPR reminds me again of that day. I was a young, second-year teacher then, with four sections of grade nine “World Cultures” and one section of A.P. United States history. Mine was a Catholic school, and we’d had Monday, December 8 off because it was a holy day, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

As teachers, our open discussion of tragedies like Sandy Hook is something we can do, today, that will contribute to clear thinking and ethical pedagogy.

Jim Bolone’s favorite childhood memory keeps his love of teaching alive, even when bureaucracy gets him down.