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Ricky was a big ball of anger. In all fairness, he had plenty to be angry about. The first years of his life were pretty rough. Now, at age 7, home life was starting to normalize. But sometimes just getting through the day without throwing a chair was enough for him to handle, let alone any sort of academic rigor. He had a hard time seeing others’ points of view. He was definitely my most challenging student and constantly in need of my attention.

Consider the humble lunch as one of your most powerful teaching tools. From the first day of school, Ricky was one of my most difficult students. Defensive, angry, and sensitive, this 7-year-old was constantly putting up walls and “testing” the adults in charge to see if we would respond to his needs. With the lack of a guidance counselor or a full-time school psychologist in the school, I knew that I had to find a way to connect with him, or we were going to have a disastrous school year.

It was a brisk New England day as I walked out of the community center with a group of Somali Muslim women from my adult English as a Second Language class. My students were laughing and joking, their hijabs blowing in the breeze. We had finished our unit on the New World, drawing connections between Europeans immigrating to America and Somalis immigrating to Lewiston and southern Maine. Suddenly, a local woman shouted, "Terrorists!"

Melea hates school. She is 4 years old and was adopted at birth by two gay men. Her dads (Mark and Sam) are Caucasian and Melea is African American-Latino.

Check out TT’s can’t-miss stories, blogs and PD resources from 2016!

At the end of the school day, many kids carry responsibilities far beyond homework.

Teaching Tolerance’s director reflects on what to tell children about the most recent wave of bomb threats against Jewish spaces.

Two new resources from Teaching Tolerance can help educators address acts of bigotry that threaten a healthy school climate.

Over dinner recently, I learned of my niece’s concern about her high school administrators removing the Kony 2012 posters that had been plastered all over the school. Kony 2012, a global campaign and viral video released by the nonprofit Invisible Children earlier this month, had fired her up and inspired her. My sister was thrilled to see her daughter so taken with a cause and so committed to having impact.

My students had questions about the central character in the story Fly Away Home written by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Ronald Himler. And even as 2nd graders, they knew something about the problem. "Homelessness is mean," said James.