A teacher confided that he’s glad that school is out in his part of the country.

He’s relieved because it’s hard to figure out how to talk to kids about George Floyd.

There are so many scary and unpleasant details, but as an educator, I would begin by asking this question: Does a person have to have a perfect record in order to expect humane treatment and due process?

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My family and I were sitting around watching videos of Space X launches when my nephew asked about the first person in space.

“John Glenn,” I answered without hesitation.

My niece then asked about the first woman in space. “Sally Ride,” I said.

And then I realized…no. I was wrong on both counts. These astronauts were the first American man and woman to orbit the earth.

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It seemed straightforward: A grim chapter about the slave trade written at about a fifth grade reading level, followed by a handful of questions meant to assess learning and help the student make connections.

One of the questions could take a career or a lifetime to answer thoroughly: “What was the Middle Passage? What was it like?”

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When we teach history, it’s easy to unwittingly imbue events with a sense of inevitability — of destiny.

After all, things happened the way they happened — the only forking paths we can create are imaginary, born of the “what ifs” that we ask ourselves.

It’s important to see that, at every step of the way, what we call history is the result of human activity. Individual human beings made choices, collectively creating movements or maintaining the status quo. Some choices are more influential than others, but change always comes from people making the decision to act.

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I grew up in a beach town in Southern Maine known for its excellent schools. For the most part, my education was pretty good. There were only three AP courses offered at the tiny high school, but the teachers were strong and the curriculum was solid. 

However, there was one gaping hole: world history.

It seemed like every year, we learned about American history beginning with Columbus and petering out around World War I. Usually, there was a field trip to the colonial history museum in the center of town, where we would churn butter and learn about the clothes and customs of the people of European descent who inhabited the village all the way back to 1652.

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A teacher reached out to colleagues to ask for help with her African-American males.

That’s what she said: “my African-American males.” Not male students — just “males.”

I applaud this teacher, who happens to be white, for asking for help in order to learn more about the experience of her students and how she can mentor them more effectively. Step one is to stop using the word “males” to identify them.

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