by LZ Granderson
(CNN) -- Each day more than 55 million students attend the country's 130,000 schools.

Each day, parents and guardians entrust some 7 million teachers with the education of our children.

And on a normal day, that is all we expect teachers to do -- teach.

But on those not-so normal days we are reminded that for six hours a day and more, five days a week, teaching is not the only thing teachers are charged with doing. On those not-so-normal days, we are reminded that teachers are also asked to be surrogate parents, protectors, heroes.

Monday was one of those not-so-normal days.

That’s Jarron on the left, Jason on the right and Oprah Winfrey in the middle. You can’t blame anyone for mistaking Jarron Collins for his twin brother, Jason. And that never used to mean much. They both went to Stanford, both played in the NBA, both developed reputations as bruising big men. They were identically nondescript NBA players.(Chuck Hodes, AP/OWN)

by Laura Wexler

(CNN) -- Coming out of the closets of our culture seems to be the thing to do these days, but it is not a new phenomenon.

Obeidallah: It's inexcusable when people engage in racist, sexist, homophobic rants

by Dean Obeidallah

(CNN) -- For some, Twitter is a social media platform that enables you to keep up with breaking news, raise political issues or offer amusing thoughts. But for many others, including myself, Twitter has become the new "Fight Club." It has in essence become the cyber version of the basement of "Lou's Bar" from that 1999 classic film.

by Freeman A. Hrabowski III

(CNN) -- Fifty years ago this month, I chanced to hear the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. I was a mild-mannered kid with a speech impediment and a love of math. That day, I was focused on solving math problems, not issues of justice and equal rights. But King broke through to me when he said this: If the children of Birmingham march, Americans will see that what they are asking for is a better education. They will see that even the very young know the difference between right and wrong.