Sometimes people forget that they have agency. I taught a class of six exchange college students in Germany recently and blew their minds when I showed them a racist bumper sticker that I had torn down. Our class was only six weeks long, but during the course of it, students gave me three more stickers they’d taken down (two were racist and one was a pun that my student didn’t get and thought was racist, but it was a good language lesson).

I’m so, so proud of this, because they’re taking ownership of their situation and actively improving their environment. It feels like a way more important lesson than anything I could have taught them about German.