Winty Singh lives in Los Angeles and is the social justice fellow at the Sikh Coalition, the largest Sikh civil rights organization in the United States. You can follow him on Twitter at @americanturban. Watch "United Shades of America," Sundays at 10:00 p.m. ET. The views expressed in this commentary are solely the author's.

(CNN) Two decades ago, when I was in the second grade, a substitute teacher asked me to stand up in front of my class and talk about my religion: Sikhism. At 7 years old, I tried to explain it as best I could and avoid being ridiculed. I remember feeling totally unprepared and struggling afterward with the fear of being exposed like that again. At 7, I was already afraid of public speaking.

Winty Singh

Later that year, we were returning from recess when a classmate pinned me down and intentionally blew his nose on my turban. He was lightly admonished for his actions, but what I remember most was that nobody, including my teacher, understood how devastating it was to have my turban -- a sacred religious article of faith in Sikhism -- desecrated by a bully.

In sixth grade, on my first day of school, a teacher asked me to remove my "beanie." After a chorus of laughter from my classmates, I stumbled to explain that it wasn't a beanie, and that I would not take it off. She relented without apology, but my classmates didn't, and "beanie" became the common word for my turban for the rest of school year.

As I got older, this bullying intensified, and one student tried to cut my unshorn hair (also an article of my faith). By the time I got to high school, I no longer felt safe in unsupervised places. I hid the depth of the problem from my parents for years, but when they discovered the truth, we approached educators, and I was forced to name the names of my fellow students. This news spread like wildfire, and the only result was that I was further ostracized.

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While Sikh Americans are doing their part to help folks better understand our faith, the question remains: How do we avoid another 7-year-old child being the best option to explain his faith in class? We must ensure that educators are given the basic tools to one day accurately teach Sikhism in every public school.

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