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During a period of ramped-up online trolling, educators can help their students understand what trolling really is, its impact and how to protect their identities on the internet.

This educator highlights seven practices she uses to engage students who miss class due to poor health, familial responsibilities or emotional or mental health issues.

Many in the LGBT community love sports. Sports, though, have rarely returned the affection. Basketball star Kobe Bryant highlighted the problem when he made an anti-gay slur in a televised game last April. In sports

At my school, we often call a student’s misbehavior a “poor choice.” A staff member suggested that the phrase unintentionally promotes a bias against the poor. I appreciated that insight. Wouldn’t it be much more accurate—and equally effective—to say, “That choice was disrespectful,” or “The choice you made disrupted our learning?”

Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) is a staple of many classrooms. At my school it lives in Advisory, a 50-minute mixed-grade class that balances literacy development with study hall and school-culture building. The goal of SSR is simple: For 30 minutes twice a week the entire school population is reading silently—and enjoying it.

One of the surest ways to motivate students to not only write, but to write with passion, purpose and power, is to make sure they have an authentic audience. This means they must write for somebody other than me, their teacher. Students must know that there is power in their words and that they can be heard.

Dispelling stigma allows young people to get the mental health support they need.

March 10-14 is Brain Awareness Week. Take a moment to learn more about how brain awareness can actually change your students’ attitudes about their own brains—and even help them be more successful in school.

A Council of All Beings is a great way to have your students develop caring attitudes toward the natural world and each other.

Every school day just after 2 p.m., Sandra pushes her cart into my classroom to clean the bathroom and empty the trash cans. She is the school custodian and my students love her. When students hear her squeaky wheels in the hallway outside our door, they listen for her kind giggle as she enters the room. "Ms. Sandra! Ms. Sandra! Can I help you empty the trash? Can I help you?" they yell out with their hands waving in the air.