after the bell

This weekend, while grading some nicely done unit plans, I listened to an extremely disturbing radio show. This week’s episode of This American Life was entitled “Shouting Across the Divide” and featured tales of being Muslim in present-day America. The first story broke my heart, as it described the experiences of a young Muslim girl in an American public school classroom where the the teacher did not fulfill her responsibility establish a pluralistic learning environment and protect her students.

I did not get the impression that the teacher was inexperienced. But I think this story might be useful for new teachers to hear to remind them of the awesome power they hold in their classrooms, and in the lives of their individual students. Given the long journey in our public school toward treating all students some degree of respect, I found it unbelievable that this scenario could still happen.