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When this literature teacher completes a book with her class and hears a student say, “Reading this makes me happy I am an American,” she flips the script.

A real-life superhero shares his thoughts on the need for diversity in comics.

“Introducing Gender: Girls, Boys and More!” is a K-2 lesson from Gender Spectrum originally published in The Gender Inclusive School: concrete strategies for creating a safer and more accepting school climate for all students. The lesson offers a set of activities that prompt students to think about what they like (favorite colors, toys, activities) as individual preferences—not due to them being a boy or girl.

Geography offers students a new perspective on our changing world.

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.

A young language arts student teacher directed her class to “close your eyes and imagine what your characters might look like.” I was observing her second-ever presentation to one of the classes where she would practice-teach for the next few weeks. “Details are very important in descriptions,” she continued, “but you can’t write about them if you can’t see them. Maybe you want to write about a beautiful young girl. Think about the details. She’d have big blue eyes and long blond hair, and her hands would be slender and delicate.” As she spoke, I watched her seventh-grade students. They represented the lower-middle-class school’s racial and ethnic mix pretty well: About half of them appeared to be Hispanic, almost a third could be considered African-American and the rest looked Caucasian. I didn’t see a blond hair or a blue eye among them. Most also had round, soft bodies.

When a country is compared to a continent, we effectively communicate that not all countries—or the people in them—are significant enough for us to name.