A place for educators to find thought-provoking news, conversation and support for those who care about diversity, equal opportunity and respect for differences in schools
Lasting Lessons from the Montgomery Bus Boycott
The time had come.
It was Dec. 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on the Montgomery public bus. This act led to Parks’ arrest, ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott and ushered in the new civil rights movement.
Tootin’ My Own Horn
I really should be practicing Aura Lee right now—or Merrily We Roll Along.
I will soon be marching on stage, balancing my sheet music on the stand, wetting my reed, and playing the clarinet in front of parents, school board members, students, even the superintendent.
How exactly did I get myself into this mess?
It all started with a simple email.
Pull out your instruments, Teachers, and join our Beginning Band students in their October concert….
Wearing Blue to Fight Bullies
As I sat down to eat with a couple of my colleagues I noticed something unusual for lunchtime: My classroom was slowly filling with students.
Assuming that my co-teacher knew what was going on, we continued to get out our food and looked forward to a few calm moments. But more than three-dozen students soon arrived. That’s when I discovered that I was about to sit in on our school’s first Gay-Straight Alliance meeting.
Am I My Brother’s Keeper?
It is not easy for my students in suburban St. Louis to connect with the characters in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. The novel is packed with gruff men. Middle aged, mostly friendless, they are all struggling to eke out an income on a ranch somewhere in California.
The one glimmer of hope in Steinbeck’s classic emerges through the relationship between two men—George and Lennie. They are not relatives. Yet in a society where individualism is paramount, George does far more than merely put up with Lennie. He cares for this mentally challenged man, blankets him with a protective shield. Other characters turn from, threaten, and even belittle Lennie. Most are astounded by George’s choice to attend to someone who seems like such a burden.
Lessons Show Plight of Immigrants Who Feed Us
Alma wanted to put milk in her children’s bottles. In her native Mexico, she could only afford to fill them with coffee. Like many recent immigrants to the United States, Alma came here to spare her children such grinding poverty. “I’d like to live [in the United States] for my kids,” she says, “for them to study and not live the life I lived in Mexico, because it was very hard.”
Once here in the States, though, Alma could only find employment as a farmworker in Florida. She still lives in poverty as one of the country’s estimated 10.8 million undocumented immigrants. These laborers do the backbreaking work that puts billions of dollars of food on our plates.
Do You Teach About Social Justice? Share With Us!
For Judy Dodge Cummings,
social justice teaching takes students through the lyrics of American folk
songs. She uses antique tunes such
as Hard Times at the Mill and Weave Room Blues to teach her Mauston,
Wis., students about unfair and dangerous work conditions.
Meanwhile, in Bucksport,
Maine, Carolyn Coe asks students to celebrate diversity through the creation of
peace flags.
The L.A. Riots Echo Loudly In My Classroom
My students are too young to remember the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Just
four years before their birth, they refer to them as something from
“back in the day.”
But the themes of police brutality, poverty
and racism are all too familiar. And most drew an immediate connection
between the Rodney King verdict that sparked those riots and the 2009 fatal shooting
of Oscar Grant. Grant was shot in the back by Bay Area Rapid Transit
police officer Johannes Mehserle less than one mile from our school in
Oakland.
Snapshots from Mix It Up at Lunch Day
Mix It Up at Lunch Day is all about diversity. It celebrates the diversity of America’s classrooms. And it shows the diverse ways teachers can tackle cliquishness in schools. We were inspired by some of the great stories the day has generated. We thought we’d share three of them with you here.
Our new guide, 
