TOLERANCE MAGAZINE: HOW WE LIVE OUR LIVES

The great promise of the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education was that children would grow up in integrated schools. The latest issue of Teaching Tolerance magazine shows that's just not what has happened.

Unmaking Brown

America's schools are more segregated now than they were in the late 1960s, and statistics show that the problem is getting worse. To reverse the trend, we need to radically rethink the meaning of "school choice."

The Only One

When you're the only person of color in your class, school can become a struggle between two worlds. Students in that situation are often expected to represent and explain their ethnic or racial group, and this can create a lot of stress.

Toward a More Civil Discourse

There is a pressing need to change the tenor of public debate from shouts and slurs to something more reasoned and effective. But it is difficult for teachers already burdened with standardized tests and administrative duties to find the time to craft lessons to teach civil discourse in their classrooms. To support teachers working to change the terms of our national debate, Teaching Tolerance offers a new curriculum entitled “Civil Discourse in the Classroom and Beyond.”

‘I Don’t Think I’m Biased’

Multicultural understanding and proficiency have never been more important to teachers than they are right now. Never before have we had so many young children entering schools populated by teachers who reflect neither their race, nor their language tradition, nor the communities from which they come. This growth in culturally diverse classrooms has unfortunately coincided with an “achievement gap” of historical proportions.

Get ideas for Mix it Up Lunch Day

The event is a simple call to action: take a new seat in the cafeteria. By making the move, students can cross the invisible lines of school division, meet new people and make new friends. Mix it Up at Lunch Day helps students become more comfortable interacting with different kinds of people.

Check out Tolerance Magazine's Teaching Kits for all grades (FREE)

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PANGEA DAY

If the whole world was watching what story would you tell? Pangea Day taps the power of film to strengthen tolerance and compassion while uniting millions of people to build a better future.

On May 10, 2008 -- Pangea Day -- sites in Cairo, Dharamsala, Kigali, London, New York City, Ramallah, Rio de Janeiro and Tel Aviv will be linked to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music. The program will be broadcast live to the world through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones.

Your film could be part of it. Pangea Day is looking for films approximately 5-minutes in length that will make people laugh, pause and think. They can be fiction, non-fiction, real-life, animation or a mixture. Above all, they should tell a story that someone else on the other side of the world will be able to relate to.

Of course, movies alone can’t change the world. But the people who watch them can. So following May 10, 2008, Pangea Day organizers will facilitate community-building activities around the world by connecting inspired viewers with numerous organizations which are already doing groundbreaking work.

Pangea is the name of the original super-continent which contained all the world's land mass before the continents started splitting apart 250 million years ago. Pangea Day is being launched with the vision that the people of the world can begin to overcome their divisions, and that the power of film can help make it possible.

Find out how Pangea Day got its start with Jehane Noujaim's wish.

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