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Every week I write a quotation on the board and ask my students to write responses to it in their journals. One of our favorite quotes is by William Butler Yeats: "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." This quote aptly captures the reason why I teach. A group of minds in a room–thinking through problems together–can generate amazing heat and ignite a fire.

In this first of a three-part series, this new-educator mentor explains how mentoring can help new teachers focus on students’ assets rather than their deficits.

In honor of the United Nations Decade for the Culture of Nonviolence, we offer practical ideas for making peace a priority in your classroom community.

Editor’s note: The author of this essay prefers the pronoun they. In a poignant letter to their teenage self, Jey Ehrenhalt—a transgender educator and advocate—recalls jarring and painful experiences of their youth and describes how many schools urgently need to become more welcoming and supportive places for transgender students.

This toolkit for “An Open Letter to Teachers Everywhere” offers two suggested resources for educators.

Encourage the change agents in your classroom with this letter of support.

An initiative to revamp college admissions criteria presents an opportunity for K-12 educators to highlight academic achievement and caring for others at the same time.

There are positive and negative effects from working in a helping profession like education. This toolkit aids educators in the exploration of the fatigue, burnout and even the trauma they may experience when helping students who are suffering.

Teachers need resilience too.

I had lunch with my preschooler recently. In line with my daughter was a little girl dressed in an embroidered churidar suit, a traditional garment in Southeast Asia. As she walked, the decorations around her collar and the gold bracelets around her wrist jingled merrily with each step. I told her how I loved her outfit. The assistant teacher leaned over and explained that the little girl was celebrating something, “I think the birthday of a god.” She looked down at the girl, “Isn't that right?” The girl looked blankly back. I then quickly interjected, “Honey, are you celebrating Diwali?” At that, the little girl nodded, grinned widely and skipped over to her table. The assistant teacher looked up at me and stared perplexed, “How did you know that?”