A September 3 article in Rolling Stone describes a disturbing trend: The Forsaken: A Rising Number of Homeless Gay Teens Are Being Cast Out by Religious Families.  It discusses the rise in high school and college students becoming homeless after coming out as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, or transgender (LGBT) because their families cut all ties with them.  The stories about how these students coped, as well as the statistics cited, are heart wrenching but important to take note of as educators.  For example, LGBT youth are estimated to comprise at least 40% of all homeless youth, and they are seven times more likely than other homeless youth to be the victims of a crime.

In her Learning the Language blog, Lesli Maxwell writes about demographic projections related to English language learners: ELLs to Keep Increasing as K-12 Schools Cross ‘Majority-Minority’ Threshold.  The 2014-15 school year is projected to be the year that White students fall below 50% of the U.S. K-12 population.  As Maxwell also reports, “By 2050, 34 percent of U.S. children younger than 17 will either be immigrants themselves or the children of at least one parent who is an immigrant, according to projections from the Pew Research Center.”

Need a good laugh about this?  Check out comedian Hari Kandabolu’s video on Upworthy about the majority-minority shift.

I just recently came across this 2013 Rethinking Schools article: Paradise Lost: Introducing Students to Climate Change through Story.  Author Brady Bennon describes how he taught a high school unit on climate change—first for a freshman global studies class and later to a senior humanities class.  He and his students had some remarkable insights that make this a worthwhile read.  My favorite quote comes at the end…“The places where we live have a profound effect on our lives. They influence our ideas, beliefs, and how we see the world. Places give us meaning. Our memories make us who we are and are inseparable from the places where they are made. So what happens when our place gets destroyed? What happens to the people who are uprooted, ripped from their homes, torn from their place?”