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Like many of us, I sometimes overuse the word “need.” I have a tendency to say that I need the new iPhone or I need a pedicure, even though those are clearly things that I want, rather than need. My greatest lesson on distinguishing between a want and a need came with my first-grade class when I was a new teacher. Volunteers from the business community came to teach for a day through the Junior Achievement program. As a new teacher, I was overwhelmed and relieved not to be responsible for lesson plans for the day. I was nervous, however, about how an idealistic businessperson would deal with 20 extremely needy first-graders living in one of the most violent parts of Oakland, Calif.

The school-to-prison pipeline represents an intersection of complex issues, including race, class, education and the American justice system. Learn more by exploring the following research. Bibliography Bureau of Justice

This professional development activity gives ideas for developing narrative empathy: using the power of story to step into another person’s shoes in the name of justice.

All over the nation people strive to answer Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous invocation: “What are you doing for others?” Many engage in projects to make their community a better place to live. My students at Life Academy in California have answered the call to service in several ways. First, they showed up on campus during a school holiday to beautify the school grounds, paint a mural, clean out an old storage room, build benches and tend to a garden. Second, they launched a 74-day fast “Season of Peace Building.” Students signed up to fast on certain days, in a kind of relay, to highlight the time from MLK day to Cesar Chavez day.

This toolkit provides a lesson plan that expands students’ knowledge and understanding of the religious diversity (or lack thereof) in their city, county or state. The lesson ends with an activity around the role of interfaith coalitions in increasing religious understanding.

“I'm just not good at math,” my daughter grumbled under her breath. I was surprised. Where did she get that idea, I wondered. As far as I can remember she has loved numbers and was quick to pick up math concepts. However, I began to see her confidence slowly wither and her frustration rise. It started in the 2nd grade. And, now, she sat at the kitchen table with pencil in hand, ready to give up, convinced she just couldn't do it anymore.

The Anoka-Hennepin school district, Minnesota’s largest, has been in the national spotlight since last year. That’s when several students who were gay or perceived to be gay committed suicide. According to friends and family, the students had one thing in common: They had been bullied at school.

Grades: 5-12 Subjects: Arts, Reading and Language Arts, Math and Technology Categories: Diversity and Inclusion; Wealth and Poverty Broad cuts to public school arts programs can encourage students to think of these

“A Painter Named Kennedy” provides students with a narrative about the experiences of one young man with a disability. This toolkit structures a class reading of the story.