I began teaching 25 years ago, inspired by the notion that all students could learn and that each and every one was entitled to be welcomed into the environment where they were to spend six hours a day for 12 years. My idealistic view of learning has been rewarded a million times by students who respond to my genuine interest and share their thoughts and ideas with me.

During those years I have climbed a thousand steps in Blarney Castle in Ireland with students who had only ever seen a castle in a book of fairy tales, adopted donkeys with tender hearted young people, explored Manhattan with the hundreds of young people who join the One World Club at the high school. These open minded young people have a vision of a society where we all care for each other and where we understand that to trample on one person’s rights tramples on all. We have celebrated the cultures of the world represented in our school, and used the lessons of the Irish Famine to learn about immigration. I have wept at too many funerals of our young people and taken pride in the achievements of my students and embraced their families. Over the past several years, my students have built gardens, helped to look after abandoned animals, taught cultural classes in the Island’s elementary schools and raised money for people in need. I am in awe of these smart, compassionate young people. I have great faith that the world will be a better place with them in it. This has been my job and it is one in which I take great pride. It is a joyful privilege.

Not all students have equal opportunities and it is our job as educators to be constantly aware of that. A simple rule that I adopted many years ago is that everyone matters and our public schools are one place where that rule should always be observed. Regardless of learning style, socio-economic status, ethnic origins and perceived abilities, all of the young people who attend our schools are entitled to the best education that we can give. Every student should be educated as if they plan to go on to Harvard. There is no one who does not deserve stimulation, acceptance, safety and respect.

A school is a large environment and can be anonymous and impersonal but every student should have a place in the school where they can go for advice or just to feel welcomed. These are the years of their lives that will shape their entire future. We do not know, and cannot know, the details of their lives outside of school, but for the six hours a day that we have them in our care, they are our responsibility. They are future musicians, academics, artists, social activists, athletes, mechanics, entrepreneurs and carpenters. They all have dreams. They are our future citizens and they need strategies to express their views, to develop their world view and to learn the value of kindness and compassion. They will inherit a complex and often frightening world, and they need to learn to build community based on respect and on mutual need.

Unfortunately, standing up for others rarely comes without a price. I recall that a few years ago, I stood up for some students who had made a perfectly reasonable request that had been refused. For the following three years, I was the target of bullying and I was not a vulnerable adolescent, but that experience was a valuable one because I use it in class to help students strategize when they are in similar situations.

Now we are living in turbulent times and prejudicial statements are used by those in our government. Stereotyping of all kinds has become the norm and our students have never needed more help in guiding their moral compasses. Anti-Semitic slurs are used frequently by those in positions that the students have been taught to respect. There have incidents of anti-Semitism in 27 states since January and slurs against Latinos and Muslims are commonplace. This is not an issue just for the communities being assaulted. It is one for all of us who hope to build a compassionate, inclusive world that will value the safety of all. We owe it to our students to prepare them for a diverse world and that begins by affirming their own personal value and the importance of understanding that racism is just another form of scapegoating and bullying.

The U.S. has been a beacon over many years for people from all over the world who came here seeking a better life, a safer life. It has been a promise that for so many has been kept. The starving Irish, the persecuted Jews, and refugees running from unjust regimes all came here and created meaning. They built their churches, their restaurants, played their music and contributed words to the language that we all speak. In more recent years, that immigration has been from Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia and Latin America. Everyone is seeking the same sanctuary and opportunity.

In our schools we have many young people whose families have taken that same brave journey and risked everything for a better life. Those young people are our students and, like all other students, deserve our care and protection. There are so many ways that their presence has enriched all our lives and has been a cause for celebration, not concern. They have endured great difficulties to get here and have embraced the American Dream with passionate sincerity. It is incredibly painful to be insulted for one’s family history or ethnic origins and surely in 2017, we can be responsive enough to reach out to all of our students and to model for all of them joyful acceptance of the fact that this is a diverse world and all our stories enrich it. Let’s open our hearts and our doors and speak out against the bullies and remember that when we tolerate the bullying of one group we just buy time until our turn comes.

Elaine Cawley Weintraub is history department chairman at the Martha's Vineyard Regional High School. She serves on the Massachusetts State Bias and Sensitivity Committee, and the advisory board for Facing History and Ourselves.