For twelve years, I was an elementary school teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

One hundred eighty school days each year.

Five years teaching kindergarten.

Six years teaching fourth grade.

One year teaching fifth grade.

The simple definition of teacher is one who teaches. But the reality of what it means to be a teacher is so much more.

He made his way around the seminar table to stand at the podium and present the paper reflecting his semester-long wrestling match with challenges to everything he had been raised to accept without questioning. “He” is a young white man – a law student – who looked as if plucked from Hollywood Central Casting for a crowd scene of stereotypic “Bubbas” attending a rally of the Ku Klux Klan.