Make your classroom into a place where bullying and intolerance are not welcome. As soon as you see any student picking on another one, take that student aside, explain why he can't bully and make him apologize. Have a discussion with students about why bullying is wrong, how to spot it and how to tell a teacher if it is happening. Teach students about negative words and phrases that they might say to each other that can hurt the other person's feelings.
Teach students about differences between people. Ask them to think of ways in which people are different from one another. Let them come up with such things as race, nationality, gender, size, sexual orientation and any other factors. Ask them why it is important to accept people for who they are, no matter what they look like, where they are from or how they live their lives. Ask students to share experiences about times they have been discriminated against or felt intolerance. Have students come up with suggestions for what to do in these situations.
Help students learn to know themselves and their own backgrounds as a means of promoting tolerance in the classroom. Have students do projects about where they come from, in terms of nation, race, language or anything else. Do activities in the classroom, such as having students draw self-portraits or write autobiographies. Have them make lists of things about themselves that make them unique and that they can be proud of.
Have students share their cultural identities with each other. Ask them to bring in objects and keepsakes with cultural and family meaning, such as old photographs and documents. Let students go to the front of the room one at a time and tell the rest of the class when their family came to America, what they had to overcome and anything else about their cultural heritage.