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“Man that boy booty sweaty!” The comment rang out in a room that was supposed to be silent. Although the student whose “booty” was being discussed was out of the room and seemingly unscathed by his classmate’s remarks, I knew I had to address this like any other incident of disrespect. Since there are some students (most, I’d wager), who would be made uncomfortable by this type of remark, everyone needs to know that it’s not okay to say such a thing. It’s an opportunity for me to help a teenager hone empathy into a habit.

In an ideal world, our students would be safe to openly be who they are at all times. Since the world we live in is far from ideal, we must support our students’ rights to privacy and trust them to make the decision to reveal their sexuality when they feel the time is right.

Gender-fluid young people navigate a variety of gender-specific spaces throughout their day at school. From seating charts based on gender to dress codes and roles in school activities, we ask students to put themselves

It’s that time of year again—when former students come into my classroom to vent about the college application process. I’ve already written more letters of recommendation than I can count this year. Now, it’s just a waiting game. My students are not good at waiting, especially when the outcome is out of their control. Not knowing whether they will be accepted to their schools of choice is excruciating.

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.

We all make mistakes. How teachers respond has everything to do with whether or not their students feel valued as human beings.

Today’s conventional wisdom is that English language learners (ELLs) need to master English as quickly as possible. Everything else is secondary. If these students remain fluent in their primary languages, good for them. If not, no big deal.

Today, I got a laptop. Not for me. For Aeesha. Let me flash back to about six weeks ago. A team meeting took place around a table in the science classroom, completing the annual discussion about Aeesha’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP). In eighth grade, Aeesha still struggles with basic mathematics, with written expression skills and with decoding text. In many ways, she is an elementary school student trapped in a middle school student’s adolescent body.

This educator reflects on the scariest student conversation she has overheard in her teaching career.