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Third grade was a bad year. Third grade was the year I learned in school that I was poor.

When we talk about devoting so many minutes to each subject in a school day, we need to make time for students to communicate about what really matters to them.

When I teach lessons about Martin Luther King Jr., I always wonder exactly how students will connect with the events and themes. My adult students are refugees and immigrants from different cultural backgrounds. Some of them were cultural minorities in their countries. Others are experiencing racial discrimination for the first time in the United States.

Missing an opportunity to speak up creates another opportunity–to practice for next time.

When Gary enrolled in her class, my friend Mary was warned that he had an attitude problem. But on his first day in her high school basic art class, she soon realized that Gary's main problem was the attitudes of certain other students.

I don’t have an answer to the question, “How should I talk to my students about Garissa?” But I have some real fears about the dangers of not contextualizing this incident.

The trouble with Women’s History Month—with all these special months—is that they encourage people to think that problems have been solved.