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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.

My middle school students had started to use words like “bum,” “creeper,” and “hobo” to describe people who are homeless in our city. To my eighth-graders, it was comic relief.

TT director Maureen Costello thinks students have one simple request: “See me.”

I decided to show a short You Tube video clip in class the other day. It’s a montage of scenes of men crying from various movies complete with cheesy background music, a song Don’t Cry Out Loud. I used it to open a discussion about how stereotypes put unnecessary limitations on people.

One of the surest ways to motivate students to not only write, but to write with passion, purpose and power, is to make sure they have an authentic audience. This means they must write for somebody other than me, their teacher. Students must know that there is power in their words and that they can be heard.

Summer is the most violent time of year in urban areas. Some cite hotter temperatures, while others point the finger at out-of-school teenagers. No one factor is to blame, but it makes sense to provide opportunities for young people while keeping them off the streets. Summer service programs can help.

This ninth-grade English language arts teacher—and TT Award winner—offers a creative way for teaching about political candidates.

Recent news of some troubling comments reveals two false assumptions: that teaching kindergarten isn’t work and that sexual harassment isn’t a problem in schools.

Students need historic context to connect activism of the past to social issues in the present.