I began wearing hijab at 12 years old, one year after 9/11. Almost overnight, I went from blending in to being stared at and bullied, as if my scarf had erased the girl my classmates previously knew. When my daughter started school, I worried about how she would be treated in the classroom. I wanted her to take pride in her faith and her Muslim identity. I wanted her to feel she belonged just as she is. And for a little while, I started to believe that was possible.When my daughter was in preschool, her teacher called and asked, “What can we do for Ramadan?” So I came into the classroom and taught a lesson about Ramadan. Small hands folded paper lanterns and covered them with shapes and patterns. Then the lanterns went up around the room, representing our celebration on my daughter’s classroom walls. The little girl I used to be felt seen, too.In kindergarten, we continued to be welcomed. I taught the moon’s phases and explained that breakfast means “breaking a fast.” We all fast while we sleep, I told the class. We were not so different from one another. After the ESL teacher saw my presentation, she asked me to give the presentation to the rest of the kindergarten classes.My daughter brought Ramadan treat bags, just as her classmates brought treats for Christmas and Easter. I watched a better childhood begin to take shape in front of me.Last year, when March came, my daughter packed the bags herself the night before. They showed painted lanterns, palm trees, geometric buildings, moons and stars, and she filled them with little stamps and bracelets chosen in her friends’ favorite colors. Only one was labeled, with “Ramadan Kareem,” for the only other Muslim child in the room. But this time, her teacher would not hand them out. The teacher called me in the middle of the day and informed me that she would not be handing out the Ramadan goodie bags because they had “religious undertones,” When I asked her to explain what she meant by that, she referred to the designs on the the bags as “pictures of your temples.” I explained that Muslims do not worship in temples. Following my phone conversation with the teacher and learning of her decision not to distribute the bags, i called the school and requested a meeting with the principal and the teacher. Several days later, I met with the principal alone; the teacher did not attend the meeting.The principal later told me he had concluded that the images on the bag were religious symbols because he had searched the word “Ramadan” and saw pictures depicting crescent moons and stars. That is how it was decided — with Google Images. He never even actually saw one of the bags.This despite the fact that the school welcomed Santa visits and hosted Easter egg hunts. Children colored dreidels and made candles for Diwali. My daughter’s school photograph came home on a holiday ornament. When my daughter came home, she was upset with me. Her teacher had told her that “her mother had asked her not to” pass out the bags because there wasn’t enough time. She thought I had taken that moment away from her. I sat beside my 6-year-old and explained, in words small enough for her to carry, what had happened. Then I told her adults make mistakes, too. A few nights later, she asked again whether she could pass out the bags. She still could not comprehend what was wrong with them. How could she? When I told her “not yet,” she grew quiet and offered to donate them to other children if her friends did not want them. She had concluded that her classmates had rejected a piece of her. They had not. They had never seen the bags she made.Two years earlier, a teacher at the same school invited me to help with an Easter egg hunt. Knowing my daughter could not eat pork-based gelatin, she prepared eggs marked with my daughter’s name so she could participate fully. The school already knew how to include her. It had done it beautifully. But with this moment, someone dragged a stroke of black paint across six years of work.The goody bags the author sent to her daughter’s first-grade classroom. Each contained a light-up bracelet, a stamp, a tic-tac-toe keychain and a small treat. Photo Courtesy Of Mariam HusseinAfter the school returned them, I posted photographs of the actual Ramadan goody bags in a parenting group I’m a member of, and asked whether parents found anything about them offensive. Many of the parents and teachers in the group were Christians, but said they appreciated the thoughtfulness of the gift and the learning opportunity it could provide.One parent who identified herself as Jewish commented, “They have to be consistent. If they want to celebrate one holiday, they’re going to have to celebrate all of them.”I taught in K-12 classrooms before becoming a university educator. I do not believe harm always begins with malice. Here, it grew from three failures that are far too common in schools. The first was a failure to ask before deciding. No one asked what the images meant. One question — “What is this?” — could have prevented everything. The second was a failure to apply the same standard to every tradition. Christmas marks the birth of Christ yet arrives as decoration. Easter arrives as plastic eggs. Familiar traditions are treated as culture, but my daughter’s Muslim traditions are treated as a problem. The third was a failure to repair harm. I never asked for discipline. I wanted curiosity, accountability and repair. Instead, the teacher and administration defended their decision. The unfamiliar may cause discomfort, but that discomfort should invite curiosity, not erasure. Rather than examine their adult discomfort, they expected my daughter to become smaller.After a classroom lesson about Ramadan, each student in the author’s daughter’s Pre-K4 class created a lantern, choosing the colors of the construction paper, balloon and decorative tape.Photo Courtesy Of Mariam HusseinI could not let her learn that belonging required her to disappear. So we unenrolled her, and she now attends another school. I remain grateful to the teachers who asked what they could do to be inclusive — who marked the eggs, invited me into their classrooms and hung lanterns on the walls. They showed me inclusion was possible. But my daughter learned the other lesson anyway. Every classroom is a painting. When teachers hang one child’s lanterns beside another child’s snowflakes, they do more than say both children belong. They build a classroom where they actually do. Differences should stir curiosity, not ignorance. They should open doors into worlds we have not yet seen, not build walls between children. When a child hands you something unfamiliar, ask what it is before deciding what it means. One sincere question can turn a barrier into a doorway.Mariam Hussein is a Teaching Specialist of Mathematics and First-Year Studies at Stockton University. As a Muslim mother and educator, she is committed to empowering students, strengthening their sense of belonging and mathematical identities, and helping Muslim students embrace their faith and identities with confidence.Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.