"Tolerance" is surely an imperfect term, yet the English language offers no single word that embraces the broad range of skills we need to live together peacefully.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used the Greek term "agape" to describe a universal love that "discovers the neighbor in every man it meets." The various disciplines concerned with human behavior have also offered a variety of adjectives: "pro-social," "democratic," "affiliative."

In its Declaration on the Principles of Tolerance, UNESCO offers a definition of tolerance that most closely matches our philosophical use of the word:

Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. Tolerance is harmony in difference.

We view tolerance as a way of thinking and feeling — but most importantly, of acting — that gives us peace in our individuality, respect for those unlike us, the wisdom to discern humane values and the courage to act upon them.

Many people don't like the word "tolerance." I really like it. People have said to me that they feel it suggests that we should "tolerate" people who are different than us. I think the Teaching Tolerance explanation of word choice is elegant and clearly deals with the potential problem of wording. Do you use "tolerance" in your diversity discussions? Should we?

side note: Teaching Tolerance is one of the best educational resources I've ever come upon. It has material on so many issues from class to race to gender to sexual orientation to gender, and many more that I'm missing.

The Student Press Initiative is a wonderful-looking program which trains teachers on best practices for getting students to publish their work publicly. This looks like a perfect opportunity for any teachers that work with students on writing. How does publishing to the public change the way we write? Can it make it more real for students? Can they connect to a wider audience than their teacher? I would say yes to all of these points.

Please share this program with your teachers. It will take place on July 12-15 in New York City, at Teachers College, Columbia University (my alma mater!).

Wide Web of diversions gets laptops evicted from lecture halls

In an unsurprising article an old media institution which is slowly withering away (the newspaper) discusses how a law school has to ban laptops in their classrooms because students aren't listening to the lectures.

"This is like putting on every student's desk, when you walk into class, five different magazines, several television shows, some shopping opportunities and a phone, and saying, 'Look, if your mind wanders, feel free to pick any of these up and go with it,' " [Professor] Cole said."

I can't see how this is any different than these future-lawyers desks are going to be. They'll be in their offices, having to do work, with a computer, Internet access, cell phones, desk phones, e-mail, instant messenger, Skype, etc, all available for their perusal.

Shouldn't law schools being teaching future lawyers how to minimize distraction, use modern tools to be better lawyers (like writing a collaborative brief via Google Docs), and embrace what modern technology has done for the legal field? Or perhaps the bigger problem is the modern legal field isn't moving to take advantage of the opportunities. My sense is that the field is, but the educational institutions training the new lawyers aren't.

I can't believe how unwilling educators are to change their practice. You've got to get to where your kids are, or you'll be irrelevant.

My rant for the day.