Turning Headlines into Impromptu Lessons

The explosion of news coverage over the controversial execution of Troy Davis in Georgia recently is a reminder that our students learn powerful lessons outside our classrooms.

These events offer opportunities for lessons of context inside our classrooms.

As teachers, how do we wade into these subjects? Should we? I know some fear being perceived as “too political” or offending students—or worse, their parents. But there is a huge difference between preaching and teaching.

As teachers, how better to push our students to analyze and to think critically and thoughtfully than by discussing deeply engaging issues? There are always creative ways to bring what’s already on the students’ minds into the open for use as a teaching tool. It may not have been in our lesson plan but it’s what students are talking about. Whether it’s 9/11, the trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor, Hurricane Katrina or an execution—it has engaged our students.

The Troy Davis story offers a particularly important and tough challenge. As with so many hot-button topics, it is tricky talking about our government’s execution of an African-American man convicted of killing a white police officer in a Southern state. Having the death penalty discussion stirs a hot cauldron of race, class, religion, power, poverty, education, politics and painful history.

Many are convinced of his innocence, as seven of the nine witnesses against him recanted their testimony (saying police coerced them to lie). No physical evidence existed to tie him to the case. The case drew international outrage from ordinary people and calls for a stay of execution from an unusual mix of luminaries, including Pope Benedict XVI, former President Jimmy Carter and the pro-death penalty former FBI Director William S. Sessions [2].

Students of all ages were asking about the case

Even my daughter, a fifth-grader, wanted to wait up to hear if the Supreme Court halted the execution. “Did they stop it?” she asked urgently, first thing when she woke up.

We had a difficult conversation about guilt, innocence [3], punishment, the justice system and the death penalty [4].

My university students were equally urgent. “What do you think of the Davis case?” they wanted to know the morning after the execution.

It was not in my lesson plan. But it was in my classroom.

As teachers, we must trust ourselves to off-road into these conversations when appropriate. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is exactly right for this discussion in a literature class. Twelve Angry Men is a perfect film to show, too. There is an ever-growing list of books, documentaries, studies and plays exploring the issue and impact of wrongful convictions [5]. There are excellent resources on the justice system and the death penalty to help teachers explain and contextualize the myths and realities of the system, the intersection of race, class, power, poverty and the systemic flaws and reforms.

We have the resources, the capacity, the ability and the spark to move these conversations from the hallway into the classroom. The rest is about faith—faith in our students and in ourselves.

Cytrynbaum is a journalist and instructor at Northwestern University.