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The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq marked my first year of teaching. When one of my students referred to Iraqis as “towel heads,” I told him he had to do extra homework researching turbans and present a report to me the next day. It took him a week to complete the assignment, and instead of gaining insight and compassion for a different group of people, he probably just became more resentful. I now see this as a lost opportunity. As a precursor to our social studies unit on conflict in the Middle East, I taught a unit this year on world religions. We started off studying seven of the world’s major faiths and then narrowed it down to the three Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Sometimes school tracking sets students up for failure, academically and socially. My students with disabilities, who require extra academic assistance, often ended up on the short end of the stick. Because they were in all of the same classes together I noticed that they also clung to each other in the cafeteria. They had a difficult time fitting in and making friends with other students.

Jenny started the year desperate to make friends. She was new, immature for her age and starting seventh grade. Because of a learning disability, Jenny was reading and writing at a second-grade level. She tried to hide that from friends. But in the cover-up effort, she often badmouthed her classmates and created drama.

Requiring the ACT increases college accessibility—but more support is needed to create a school-wide culture of achievement.

Divisive fundraisers make schools unsafe for kids from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

What do you do when anti-bias teaching strategies are derailed by real, in-the-moment fears? See how one educator responded to Islamophobia in her classroom.

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 fastest-growing group of young people in the juvenile justice system is also the least talked about.

She’s popular, but is she right? TT examines Dr. Ruby Payne’s A Framework for Understanding Poverty.

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.