As a teacher at a downtown high school, some of my best classes happened when I threw away my lesson plan and took my students on a walk.
We’d search for famous tombstones in a 200-year-old cemetery. Inside an old gathering place for abolitionists, we’d read a speech Frederick Douglass once gave there. And every year, we’d examine the inner workings of the criminal justice system through readings, debate, and a visit to arraignment court.