Her lesson plan...climaxes with the building of an "intolerance wall," where students write on paper bricks acts of intolerance they've experienced and witnessed. The students use the bricks to build a paper wall in the classroom.

Teachers, students and parents in the classroom are invited to share their own experiences for the wall, which builds up for a month or two until the class ceremoniously tears down "the walls of intolerance."

Students also learn songs about how to be tolerant, and learn about historic events such as the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and other examples of the mistreatment of people based on race, gender, physical condition -- or anything else.

A novel idea. But how does it actually affect the students?

The unusual curriculum has made a splash at the school and is popular with students, who actively engage in the projects and discussion. Some of the students said the program has changed their attitudes about others.

"We stopped judging people from the outside, we started getting to know them," said 11-year-old Joshua Djan, who was in Frandsen's class last year. In fact, the lessons so profoundly affected Joshua that he and two other former students of Frandsen's -- current sixth-graders Morvarid Mehdizadeh, 11, and Monty Saengsavang, 11 -- were inspired to write a play.

The play is a take on Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," incorporating the ghosts of intolerance past, present and future. It features a bully who is mean to a geek, and other stereotypical characters, as well as some of the songs on tolerance Frandsen taught the students. The moral of the play is to teach people to respect differences in others.

"We wanted to show people what tolerance and intolerance means," Monty said.

The last names give me the impression that Ms. Frandsen's class is probably pretty diverse. When kids come from such diverse backgrounds, it is imperative that every kid in the class be on equal footing. If racism is allowed to fester, obviously the child from an "outgroup" background (as opposed to the "in" group) is going to suffer, emotionally as well as educationally. Making the erasure of racism a priority in the classroom benefits all the students as well as ensures that all the students have the opportunity to benefit from the class.

So far, Frandsen said, the kids have been enthusiastic about the tolerance lessons. Often she'll overhear students noting when someone does something intolerant.

"They'll say, 'That's intolerant!'" she said.

That's exactly the result Frandsen was hoping for -- to get students to take pause and think about their actions.

And her students are on board with the idea.

"With acts of tolerance, we can end prejudice," Morvarid said. "We can end racism."

"We can end racism." May this child -- and all of Ms. Frandsen's students -- never grow out of thinking that. Ken yirbu.