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The 2008 election showed us that true progress in the struggle for equality is possible. Yet there is still much work to be done.

A message from Teaching Tolerance director Brian Willoughby.

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!"

Most natural scientists of the 19th century held the belief that human beings were not only members of different races but of different species (also known as the theory of polygeny). This school of thought relied on the

How to challenge language prejudice in the classroom.

When I was studying to be a teacher, I had to write a philosophy of education. This essay was to explain what I believed about kids and the role teachers and education played in their lives. I wrote that all kids could learn, that they all deserved equal access to inspired teaching and that my role was to meet them wherever they were and serve them in the way that best met their needs.Although I still believe those things are true, I've come to realize that my teaching is driven more by a different philosophy than the one I wrote about.

Browse a menu of ideas that honor student identities, build intergroup awareness and support diverse learners.