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My third-period students rushed in at the start of class, wide-eyed and excited. Something had happened. “Quentin hit Ms. Combs!” Helen Combs was my friend. She taught language arts. “He knocked her down,” one student reported. “They took her to the hospital, and the police took him away in handcuffs!”

The whine of the projector subsides. Someone clicks on the lights. As the professor asks for commentary, the rapid raising of hands signifies an eagerness to respond. I remain still. Listening to my peer’s criticism of the Appalachian people featured in the made-for-TV special, I am humiliated.

The empty space left by the death of a young person seems somehow larger—perhaps because we sense not only the absence of who he was, but also of who he could have become. This emptiness can engulf an entire community, even a nation, when the death is unjust.

Recently, I was in a public place with a friend when I saw a woman wearing a very creative, flamboyant outfit. Knowing that my friend would be interested, I discreetly whispered to her to look at the woman in the

My day begins supervising fourth-grade recess. It’s a nice way to ease into being in the school building, where I often cringe at how we insist that small children stay tethered to their chairs for so many hours in a row.

When the Dallas Texas Public Schools District decided to show its fifth-graders Red Tails, an action-adventure film based on the Tuskegee pilots who formed the country’s first black aerial combat unit, it was a tremendous idea. The district felt students would be inspired by the story of these men who fought segregation, integrated the Army and were trained as combat pilots for the United States during WWII.

We asked our 25 Teaching Tolerance Advisory Board members what advice they would offer to fellow educators about Black History Month. Each of these experienced educators offers a wealth of expertise, especially when it comes to bringing multicultural topics into the classroom.

I needed to expose my preservice teachers to a real, lasting experience with diversity. I had one day. Growing up in South Dakota, where 86 percent of the population is white, my students come to college with few experiences interacting with culturally diverse students. The reality is that classrooms today are becoming increasingly diverse.

Historian Carter G. Woodson established the first Negro History Week in 1926—a celebration that later became Black History Month. The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, a group founded by Woodson, selects a new theme for Black History Month each year. This year’s theme is "Black Women in American Culture and History."

It was Black History Month. I was working with children and youth in an after-school program in the Clarksdale housing projects in Louisville, Ky. Spike Lee's film Malcolm X had just been released. I sat around a table with a group of teenagers discussing Alex Haley’s Autobiography of Malcolm X and James Cone’s Martin & Malcolm & America.