Professional Development

This activity is to accompany the Teaching Tolerance article "Give Bigotry No Sanction."

This activity is to accompany the Teaching Tolerance article "Possession Obsession." 

When schools implement anti-bullying programs, the focus is usually centered on student-to-student bullying. However, students aren’t the only bullies in school. Teachers sometimes earn the label when they employ questionable disciplinary and management practices. Addressing Teacher Bullies is a presentation intended to help educators assess and reflect on their classroom management style and learn more about how inappropriate displays of teacher power can impact student learning.

"Moving Beyond Cultural Competence" is the second installment in the three-part series, Assessing Culture. We’ve designed it for teacher leaders, professional learning groups, staff development coordinators and other educators. 

“Social Justice Equity Audits” is a presentation intended to help educators move beyond simple accountability models to those that include an equity framework for school reform. This will allow educators to better meet the needs of all learners. At the center of the presentation is instruction to employ a school survey to assess the conditions for students at their school and explore what next steps teacher leaders can take to improve these conditions.

Conversation Guidelines for Schools and Academic Settings, developed by the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, provides useful steps for having respectful conversations about 9/11 and religion. 

This is the first of a three-part series for education professionals interested in engaging their colleagues around issues of culture and how it manifests in the classroom.

Providing job-embedded, collaborative teacher growth and learning is not a new idea, but making that happen effectively in your school can be a mind-boggling venture. One successful approach involves using professional learning teams in which small groups of teachers meet regularly during the school day to focus on student needs and solutions.

Review of research on the effects of racial and ethnic diversity in schools on racial understanding and student achievement.

Hawley's review of research on the effects of racial and ethnic school diversity on critical thinking skills and academic achievement.

Teacher and students producing together facilitates learning through joint productive activity among teacher and students.

The oak tree where nooses were hung at the Jena High School campus in the Fall of 2006 no longer stands. It was chopped down, presumably in an effort to erase racial tension in the small Louisiana town of Jena.

These tools lay the groundwork for productive, reasoned and lively discussions on a variety of topics. They also will give students “training wheels” for learning how to have reasoned arguments outside the classroom.

Psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia and the University of Washington created "Project Implicit" to develop Hidden Bias Tests — called Implicit Association Tests, or IATs, in the academic world — to measure unconscious bias.

Tips for using grassroots organizing to engage your school’s parents.

How to develop a world religions curriculum with inclusion and sensitivity.

5 Tips

Expert Q&A

Personal Story

Personal Story

Parents' Biases

The Teen Years

Ages 13-17