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Based on the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Schools, modern-day programs educate and empower students.

This school administrator offers recommendations for setting up courageous conversations in the new year, with discussions among colleagues as the first step.

A conversation with Daphne Muse.

This piece accompanies the Teaching Tolerance feature story " Lonely Language Learners?" Just after 8 o'clock on a rainy April morning, teacher Helen Reid greets three of her students, none of whom has been in the U.S

Teaching Tolerance has reported many times and in many ways that the United States is plunging headlong toward racial and cultural re-segregation. That process took an enormous leap in the wrong direction last week when the Wake County school board in North Carolina voted to dismantle its policy of diversifying the schools.

There is a wonderful scene in Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird where the all-white jury has returned an unjust verdict against Tom Robinson. Atticus begins to wearily walk out of the courthouse. Jem and Scout are in the balcony with the black folks of the county. They all rise as Atticus walks out—except the children—so the Rev. Sykes says to Scout, “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’.”

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me." I was sitting outside on the playground bench wiping the tears of a child when this proverb came to mind. It isn’t true, of course. Nancy was a second-grader going through an evaluation process to help us understand why she couldn't read. Kayla was one of her classmates. As they were climbing the ladder of the slide, Kayla yelled out, "Nancy is retarded!" Ouch. Words can break our hearts.

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.

"Mr. Barton, I have some homework for you," said Alandra. "But I left it at home on the table." "No problem," I answered. “Just bring it whenever you can." I can say that now because I'm a reading interventionist. Homework isn't expected from me like it is from classroom teachers.

Every now and again, a student will say something that leaves me speechless and desperate for the correct response. I can feel in my bones that the moment is about to become pivotal. One of these moments came while we were reading Katherine Paterson’s novel The Great Gilly Hopkins, in which the main character deals with her racism. We were in the process of analyzing her character, her motivations and her racist attitudes, and I could tell that my sixth-graders didn’t really understand the theme of racism, so I needed to step away from the novel for a moment and put the history in context for them.