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Her lessons met the standards, but her students were pummeling each other in the restroom between classes. How one teacher found a way to reach the benchmarks that really matter.

Followers of Islam face widespread prejudice in the United States. How can teachers help students overcome these attitudes?

We each have a part to play, a role uniquely ours each day. I’d raised my hand often enough and spoke about equity and LGBT rights during my years in Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District to convince myself I was accomplishing the role I’d chosen when I decided to teach.

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.

Does your school's anti-bullying policy end at the edge of the parking lot?

Kudos to the U.S. Department of Education for making such a strong case in this week's Dear Colleague Letter that bullying is a matter of civil rights. The DOE rightly reframed the issue of bullying in schools as one of institutional responsibility—one that can get schools into serious legal trouble if ignored. Among other things, the letter says “some student misconduct that falls under a school’s anti-bullying policy also may trigger responsibilities under one or more of the federal antidiscrimination laws.”

The editor of Teaching Tolerance writes on critics' objections to the magazine's treatment of gay and lesbian issues

If you are the kind of educator who builds a safe and open classroom culture and teaches with a compassionate heart, students will come to you. They will share their secrets. The culture you create in the classroom can often serve as an invitation for students to seek solace and advice outside of class. We have all faced the blessings (and burdens) of our students’ trust. A new study out of Northwestern University (where I teach) reminds us that we must be prepared for our students’ stories to come tumbling out.