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The Teaching Tolerance staff reviews the latest in culturally aware literature and resources, offering the best picks for professional development and teachers of all grades.

Recently I suspended a seventh-grade boy for publicly calling his former girlfriend a “slut” and a “whore.” Our rules on slurs are clear. But as I learned again, talking about something in class doesn’t always affect student behavior, especially if the unwanted behavior isn’t corrected or condemned outside of the classroom.

Every marking period I contact the parents of my most remarkable students to tell them how great their kids are. I do this for a few reasons. Too often, my attention is consumed with kids who need refocusing, redirecting and all the other IEP-mandated practices teachers do anyway. But mostly I contact the remarkable students because I’ve noticed that the kids who do good work often go unacknowledged.

This toolkit for the Story Corner “The First 100 Days” offers suggested steps for planning a 100-day (or fewer days) classroom plan.

American schools are resegregating. What's happening in your community?

How do teachers recover from moral injury? This toolkit includes a guided self-reflection to help sustain you and your service to students.

Following the president’s approval of the contentious Keystone XL Pipeline, students may be wondering what the decision means. Use this mini-guide to inspire discussions about this current event in your classroom.

At my school, we often call a student’s misbehavior a “poor choice.” A staff member suggested that the phrase unintentionally promotes a bias against the poor. I appreciated that insight. Wouldn’t it be much more accurate—and equally effective—to say, “That choice was disrespectful,” or “The choice you made disrupted our learning?”

It’s not that hard to stick out in middle school. The unspoken code of social conduct is unyielding and inflexible. Anything outside of those narrow parameters is weird, and weird makes kids uncomfortable.