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Every school day just after 2 p.m., Sandra pushes her cart into my classroom to clean the bathroom and empty the trash cans. She is the school custodian and my students love her. When students hear her squeaky wheels in the hallway outside our door, they listen for her kind giggle as she enters the room. "Ms. Sandra! Ms. Sandra! Can I help you empty the trash? Can I help you?" they yell out with their hands waving in the air.

Children can learn a thing or two from pets. They learn responsibility through feeding and caring for their furry friends. They learn about loss when their pets die and they partake in their first funeral rites.

In order to enhance my sixth-graders’ ability to connect personally with topics we read about in class, I assigned a writing assignment. I ask students to make real connections to demonstrate their understanding of the topic. There are three areas of connection. First there’s the connection to their lives, then to another piece of literature and finally—the most sophisticated connection—to the world.

Elementary school-aged children get no time to just be, experience their own selfhood, to rest. It’s important for the development of creativity, for mental growth and even for discovering something new. However, from the time most children get up in the morning until they go to sleep at night, someone is hurling demands at them.

Three girls take part in a common kindergarten classroom interaction—planning what they’ll play during morning recess. Recess is a time when children participate in unrestricted free play with their peers. The games to be played–and the players—are constantly on the minds of the 5- and 6-year-olds, especially during cleanup. One of the girls in the group offers the following suggestion, “How about only people wearing skirts are cats?”

Autism is often represented by disconnected puzzle pieces. This symbolism sends an unfortunate message about people with autism that does not promote social justice.

Growing up, I remember the children in “special ed” seemed to live in an alternate universe within our school. Regardless of the distinctions in their challenges, they all were placed together in one class, shuttled around as one throng, rarely included in the activities the rest of us took for granted.

The United States Justice Department recently struck a blow against bullying behavior. Officials there reversed a decade-old policy and asked to intervene in a harassment suit brought by a gay youth.