Introduction

From their first days in the preschool classroom, with shy, hesitant hellos, to jockeying the boisterous hallways of the middle schools, to navigating the sophisticated social matrices of the high schools, children want to know: Do I belong? Am I welcome here? As educators, we all know these students. We can picture their faces, read their body language. These are our kiddos—the youngsters or young adults with whom we work each day. But we don't just know them as other people's children. We see ourselves in them. These students are us.