Here’s What These High School Students Had To Say About Events In Ferguson

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The day after a grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson for the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown, Minnesota high school teacher Tom Rademacher expected to “check in with kids at least a little bit about their reactions.” However, when he arrived in school Tuesday of this week, he found the events in Ferguson, Missouri, were the only topic students wanted to talk about. “In every class it became a really extensive thing, and took up the whole hour every hour all day long,” Rademacher, who was previously named the 2014 Minnesota Teacher of the Year, told The Huffington Post. Rademacher, who teaches English at a school composed primarily …

The day after a grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson for the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown, Minnesota high school teacher Tom Rademacher expected to “check in with kids at least a little bit about their reactions.”

However, when he arrived in school Tuesday of this week, he found the events in Ferguson, Missouri, were the only topic students wanted to talk about.

“In every class it became a really extensive thing, and took up the whole hour every hour all day long,” Rademacher, who was previously named the 2014 Minnesota Teacher of the Year, told The Huffington Post.

Rademacher, who teaches English at a school composed primarily of students of color, wrote down his students’ reactions to the events, and later tweeted the students’ remarks with the hashtag #FergusonInClass. He said many of his students identified with Brown, who had just finished high school at the time of his death and was unarmed.

“In almost every class, the conversation turned very, very quickly away from the specifics of the Ferguson case and toward how much of this is reflected in their reality and their day-to-day lives and stuff they had seen and experienced — a lot of students commenting that this could so easily be them or their little brother or sister,” said Rademacher.

Overall, though, Rademacher says, his students’ sentiments did not reflect anger — unlike many of the reactions he has heard outside his classroom.

“I heard a lot of pain and I heard a lot of hope and a lot of hopelessness actually. Sometimes from the same kid at the same time,” said Rademacher. “But I didn’t hear a lot of anger.”

Below is a compilation of tweets documenting what some of Rademacher’s students said regarding Ferguson:

More On Ferguson From HuffPost:

Photographic Evidence Reveals | ‘First Year Law Student Could Have Done Better Job’ | 61 Arrested | Ferguson Smolders After Night Of Fires | Protest Locations | Americans Deeply Divided | Police Chief: ‘Worse Than The Worst Night We Had In August’ | What You Can Do | Darren Wilson Interview | Darren Wilson Could Still Face Consequences | Timeline | Students Protest | Photos Of Darren Wilson’s Injuries Released | Shooting Witness Admitted Racism In Journal | Peaceful Responses Show The U.S. At Its Best | Reactions To Ferguson Decision | Prosecutor Gives Bizarre Press Conference | Notable Black Figures React | Jury Witness: ‘By The Time I Saw His Hands In The Air, He Got Shot’ | Thousands Protest Nationwide |

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Here’s What These High School Students Had To Say About Events In Ferguson