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Yesterday, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly appeared on the television show The View. There, he got into a heated discussion about building a mosque in lower Manhattan near Ground Zero with Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar. They eventually walked off the set in disgust.This morning on Fox & Friends, host Brian Kilmeade decided to weigh in on the matter, predictably calling Goldberg and Behar cowards. He then added, “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.” Later, on his radio show, Kilmeade said that this was simply a “fact.”

“Jamilla may have to quit,” my friend Bob said. “She’s not the only one. This new ‘pay-to-play’ policy could wipe out two-thirds of my team.” Bob was the girls’ soccer coach at our urban high school. For several years he had been growing his program. Finally, his girls were becoming competitive in their league.

What happens when coaches get church-state separation wrong?

My student Belinda got into a fight last year. It wasn’t a prissy, slappy, name-calling fight, either. It was a reality television-worthy, punch- throwing, eye-bruising fight that didn’t end until Belinda’s opponent had ripped the weave out of her hair and waved it around in front of the student spectators.

As I head back to the classroom, I think about the last school year. In the second-to-last week of school, my fifth-grade classroom was 90 degrees, with no air conditioning. My students were sitting together, helping each other, laughing, struggling and having fun. At the beginning of the year, they were unsure of each other. They smiled politely but kept to themselves or the friends they knew and never asked for help. So what had changed?

"Hack jams" encourage students to question reality, challenge texts and authors, and practice becoming agents of change in the world.

Maya Angelou was an activist up until the very end of her life: visible, accessible, present to the people to whom her work and her message of hope meant the most.

My knee injury was neither serious nor permanent, but it was enough to put me on crutches and earn me a key to the elevator.

Some students struggle to see gender stereotypes, but telling personal stories can open their eyes.