Between the social-media-fueled pressure, college admissions madness and bullying culture, schools today can be a minefield. We collected some education-themed Op-Eds to help guide families as they settle into the new year.

Elementary School

Sophie Lécuyer

Teaching Peace in Elementary School
Is your child feeling left out? Angry at you? Embarrassed to speak up during class? Don’t ignore these feelings. Unless emotions are properly dealt with, children won’t be able to reach their full academic potential.

Memorize That Poem
For students who seem to have less and less patience for long reading assignments, perhaps it’s time to bring back poetry memorization. Capitalize on their ear for the phony free verse of Twitter and texting and give them better words to make sense of themselves and their world.

Bullying in the Age of Trump
Parents often wonder about the effect on kids when celebrities or leaders treat people badly or fail to stand up to bigotry and prejudice. Though there’s no way to measure the precise impact, we know that they absorb shared ideas about what behavior is permitted and what is intolerable. If we can’t count on our national leaders to counteract bigotry, then we have to redouble our efforts to do so ourselves. Words are a start and deeds must follow, in small moments of kindness and larger acts of standing for justice.

High School

Jing Wei

First, Sex Ed. Then, Death Ed.
As information spread and birth control became increasingly available, unwanted pregnancies dropped and rates of S.T.D.s plummeted. In this case, knowledge really is power. This is true of death, too. We need to learn how to make a place for death in our lives, and we also need to learn how to plan for it.

Don’t Suspend Students. Empathize.
When students witness their classmates being shown the door for trivial offenses, they worry that they may be next. Studies show they grow anxious and do worse on some high-stakes tests. So, what’s to be done? Enter empathy. Sharing what teachers and students have in common, such as a passion for music, a wry sense of humor or even similar values, allows teachers and students to connect and communicate better. Establishing this common ground might seem minor, but it may keep a great many students out of trouble and doing better academically.

How to Survive the College Admissions Madness
Freshman year of college is a year away, but the admissions process can get stressful and you might already be swimming in numbers: SAT scores; the percentage of applicants admitted; how much money graduates tend to make …. And before you know it, you’ll be hearing back from schools. When the time comes, try to remember that no acceptance or rejection from a university should be seen as the conclusive measure of a young person’s worth, or a harbinger of the accomplishments or disappointments to come.

College

Jared Oriel/Pratt Institute

Seersucker and Civility
With the debate around free speech raging around the country, you might be wondering how to navigate campus in a way that allows you to learn, but also debate. Try listening to your classmates, even if you disagree with them. Recognize your differing opinions and try to respect them. Don’t resort to name-calling or you’ll miss the chance to learn something. After all, “Even tense communication has to remain polite for thoughtful dialogue.”

You’ll Never Be Famous — And That’s O.K.
A lot of college students want to change the world, but too many think that living a meaningful life requires doing something extraordinary. “Thanks to social media, purpose and meaning have become conflated with glamour: Extraordinary lives look like the norm on the internet.” Don’t focus on someone else’s Instagram account when you can focus on creating real-life experiences that matter to you. Meaning is found not in glamour, but in the mundane.

U Can’t Talk to Ur Professor Like This
After one too many students called a professor by her first name and sent her emails that resembled drunken late-night Facebook posts, she took a very fogeyish step. She began attaching a page on etiquette to every syllabus: basic rules for how to address teachers and write polite, grammatically correct emails.

Written by: By Tariro Mzezewa, nytimes.com