Teaching the Chauvin verdict

On Wednesday, many teachers will have a big topic to discuss with their students: the news that a jury convicted Derek Chauvin of murder for the killing of George Floyd. We reached out to some of the educators who have been in touch with this newsletter to see how they’ll handle it.

Emily Beenen, an English teacher in Albuquerque, N.M., said she will have “just a very simple debrief” with her students, and then ask them some basic questions: What do you think? How do you feel?

“I am not trying to traumatize anybody, but you want to acknowledge their lived experience, but do so in an academic way and in a supportive way,” said Beenen, who teaches mostly Native students. “It kind of gives these names to these things that they already see and know around them.”

Kellie Crook teaches at an all-girls charter school in Baltimore that she said was “99 percent Black.” Like other teachers in the school, she plans to start a conversation with the poem “Allowables,” by Nikki Giovanni, and discuss justice and accountability.