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
Remembering Bloody Sunday
On March 7, 1965, millions of Americans sat watching their television sets in horror. Grainy black-and-white news images from Selma, Ala., showed about 600 mostly African-American protesters trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. They were marching to the state capital, Montgomery, to win voting rights in the Jim Crow South.
The Trouble with Women’s History Month
The trouble with Women’s History Month—with all these special months—is that they encourage people to think that problems have been solved. The female heroes of yesterday are acknowledged, the debt paid and the slate cleaned.
Noose on Campus
It used to be thought that college was where you went to open your mind, explore ideas and, in the words of Robert Maynard Hutchins, former president of the University of Chicago, “be freed from the prison-house of … class, race, time, place [and] background.”
Diversity in One
I recently finished The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Sherman Alexie’s young adult novel repeatedly hit my funny bone and my weepy bone, too. The protagonist, Arnold “Junior” Spirit, a Native American on the Spokane Reservation, barges through all the traps of pathos and romanticisation sometimes found in “multi-culti” kid literature. There are repentant racists and quiet heroes, little triumphs and gut-punching tragedies. But it’s a great book, and I can see why it won the 2007 National Book Award.
Why I Teach: My Grandfather's Legacy
As a child I knew my grandfather was different. Grandpapa had been a sharecropper in southern Indiana. He had worked most of his adult life raising corn and pigs. His hands were big and callused. He stooped when he walked and the skin on his neck and face was scarred. His earlobes were long, stretched and fused down low at the back of his jawbone. His eyes seemed to be a bit elongated in their sockets. He was different because he looked different. You see, when he was a young child he had played with matches and caught his clothes on fire. His facial disfigurement was the price he paid for the bad judgment of a toddler.
Mortgaging The Future
School kids today struggle with a lot outside the classroom. Their distractions range from drugs and cyberbullying to over-busy schedules and ads peddling unrealistic body images.
The recession has not helped with this. In fact, it’s created more serious distractions, especially for Latinos and African Americans.
Music Of The Civil Rights Movement
Teachers searching for new ways to observe Black History Month now have a great resource with "In Performance at the White House: Songs of the Civil Rights Movement.” The concert, which was held last week, can be heard on National Public Radio. You can also check out President Barack Obama’s introductory remarks.
Giving Darwin His Due
A few years ago, I wrote a classroom resource about ecology for elementary and middle school kids. It covered all the territory you’d expect—biomes, habitats, food chains, etc.
But the publisher insisted on a conspicuous omission. No mention could be made of one of the major biologists who pioneered ecology.
That biologist was Charles Darwin.
Our new guide, 
