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Teaching Tolerance’s director reflects on what to tell children about the most recent wave of bomb threats against Jewish spaces.

Over dinner recently, I learned of my niece’s concern about her high school administrators removing the Kony 2012 posters that had been plastered all over the school. Kony 2012, a global campaign and viral video released by the nonprofit Invisible Children earlier this month, had fired her up and inspired her. My sister was thrilled to see her daughter so taken with a cause and so committed to having impact.

I held up the front page of our college newspaper and asked my first-year journalism students if any questions came to mind as they looked at the photographs of candidates running for president and vice president of our student government. It’s a multimedia storytelling class and the assignments for the week were about analyzing and taking photographs.

Something was different at the school cafeteria. The menu included a vegetarian meal of elbow macaroni with cheddar cheese and broccoli. There was also a choice of a 100-percent-beef burger (without pink slime!) on a whole-grain bun. And there was ginger-carrot soup, whole-grain breads, leafy green salads, black beans and shredded cheese.

When I was growing up, most of my friends were a lot like me. We looked a lot alike, lived in similar neighborhoods and rarely questioned the racial and cultural uniformity that was the fabric of our lives. This isn’t to say that my high school lacked all diversity. Like many high schools, our student population was fairly segregated, and I stuck with the group where I felt most comfortable. It wasn’t until college that I experienced some authentic diversity, developed friendships with people who were different from me, and began to recognize how isolated I had been in high school.

The confluence of President Obama’s second inauguration and MLK Day is a fitting legacy and inspiration to continue making changes.

More than half the students in my middle school receive special education services or some extra help for academics or behavior. We polled our student leadership to find out the biggest issues in school. They said, “Cliques.”

“I hate Jews.” That was the sentence, uttered coldly and dripping with vile undertones, from the mouth of a sixth-grader that nearly caused me to let a very powerful teachable moment slip through my fingers. Almost.

As dean of students, I’m sitting at my desk passing time one morning when my radio crackles. “There was just a fight in the courtyard,” says a teacher. “I’m bringing both of the students in right now.” I sigh in frustration and turn to watch the security-camera footage on my computer. Sure enough, there are two students facing off in the courtyard. Oh no, I think. Please don’t let that be who I think it is.

My knee injury was neither serious nor permanent, but it was enough to put me on crutches and earn me a key to the elevator.