Sensitive Topics in the Classroom

Guest Blogger: Heather Bennett

November 8^th 2016, a day that will live in infamy.  We elected Donald Trump as our next president. While some celebrated, many people were terrified.  For months the world watched as Donald Trump reduced races of people to negative stereotypes, marginalized many minorities and women, and indirectly promoted hate amongst American citizens.  For many, the election of such an individual to the most powerful position in the country brought about fear and terror. 

For many of my students, 60% of them international students, 98% of them women, and all of them African American, the election of Donald Trump instilled a deep fear, anger, disappointment and an overall lack of confidence in the workings of our government. My students seemed a little more discouraged the day after the election when they walked into class. It seemed awkward not to mention the election, as I could clearly see that my students wanted to discuss what they were thinking. I was hesitant to open up for discussion such a sensitive topic. I did not want lecture time to be consumed with discussion on the presidential election or the topic to lead to a hostile environment. However, I did not want to minimize their feelings, or fail to acknowledge the validity of their emotions. Simply not mentioning the election, I felt sent a message that I did not care how my students maybe feeling. I wanted to give students a safe space to share and elaborate on these feelings of fear and disappointment. I also wanted to encourage and support them.  I decided to address the “elephant in the room” and encourage students to disclose their feelings. I asked for students to take a few minutes and to quietly write down what emotions they were feeling after learning the results from the presidential election.  I then left it open for students to share, if they felt comfortable, their feelings with the rest of the class. I stressed that students must be respectful and listen to their classmates. I challenged them to try to understand each other’s views. After sharing, I had students ball up the paper with any negative emotions and throw them like a snowball at the front of the room. I then challenged the students to share how they could use these negative feelings for something positive. The activity only took 15 minutes of class time and several students thanked me for giving them an opportunity to voice their feelings. One student said prior to my class no teacher had mentioned the election results and it seemed as if no one cared how the students may be feeling or perhaps they too should just get over it.     

For many of us our performance on any task is tied to our emotional well-being. As an educator, I think it is important to realize that our students will be greatly affected by what may be happening in society.  We must learn how to engage students in meaningful discussion and try to understand how the emotions of our students may influence their learning. I am curious, how do more experienced educators discuss difficult and sensitive topics in the classroom? What are some techniques or strategies teachers use in the classroom to help students handle emotional topics? 

What We Teachers Worry About

Those of you who read Faculty Focus probably saw the following list in a recent posting. It categorizes the concerns expressed by new teachers, listed from most to least important. 

• Exhibiting command of the material (being able to answer student questions, give relevant examples)
• Balancing "teacherly" authority and student rapport
• Dealing with communication anxiety (public speaking)
• Engaging rather than boring students
• Managing students’ perceptions of teacher
• Juggling roles (teaching, research, service, life)
• Resolving grade complexities
• Being memorable
• Negotiating flexibility in policies, assignments
• Overcoming cultural differences between teacher and students

I was struck, when I read through this “top 10” list how little I worried about some of the issues but how much some of the others, after all my many years of teaching, still cause the occasional sleepless night.  I don’t spend much time anymore thinking about authority vs. rapport, for instance; my comfort level there developed over the years, as did my comfort level with student perceptions of me, whatever they may be.  Similarly, being appropriately--but not too--flexible in my demands and being able to resolve student grade protests do not cause me much concern any more; one learns from experience, I guess.  

On the other hand, despite my experience I still find myself struggling with how to get my tired, busy, adult students focused and engaged, and with each new  semester I still experience nagging doubts that I have prepared enough to show that I’m up to date and in command of new scholarship.

One item I would add to the list, that I never used to worry about, is just what my role in any given class period should be.  Am I  still, too often, being that sage on the stage even if I am standing off to the side and talking about material on students' computer screens?  Did I prepare enough material to keep the learning going?  Too much?  The wrong sort?

I’d be interested in hearing--wherever you might be in your teaching career trajectory--what worries you the most as you strive to be successful in your chosen profession. Or what you don't worry about at all.

Lessons Learned in the Classroom

 I can never resist articles that promise a finite number of answers: the three most important qualities of a good teacher, the five new technology tools everyone needs to know, the seven characteristics of a good manager, that sort of thing.  So when I saw Dr. Paula Cohen’s article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the 10 lessons she’s learned from her teaching career, I had to check it out. 

Cohen’s 10 lessons, learned over three decades of teaching English at Drexel University, were these:

1. Don't take things personally.
2. Be accountable to your students.
3. Make students accountable for their performance.
4. Simplify.
5. Don't rush—i.e., slow down.
6. Listen.
7. Use. (I was relieved to see that this didn’t refer to illegal substances but rather to using everything said or done in the classroom as part of the teaching process).
8. Connect learning to life.
9. Make form follow function. (Don’t adopt a new tool until you weigh both what will be gained and what will be lost.)
10. Trust your voice and amplify it. (Admit, for instance, when you don’t know something and then model “how not to know.”)

Her exploration of each of these 10 lessons is thought-provoking, and for me it raised the question of what else I would add. One “lesson” that came to mind was “Appreciate the joy.”  When I’m in the classroom, I’m doing something I love, and I think it’s important to my students and to myself that I remember to be grateful for that, even when faced with stacks of homework awaiting my attention or hours of meetings awaiting my presence.   

What would you add?  What lessons have you learned from your classroom during your teaching career?  Can we make it a baker’s dozen? Or two?

The "A" Word, Again

Guest blogger: Dave Royer

To the reader: the following blog uses the “a” word, so sufferers of “a” exhaustion, be forewarned.

In one of my recent classes we had a discussion; it was not explicitly planned, but we were covering a topic that had the potential to elicit strong opinions. I enjoyed hearing the students’ opinions, and their perspectives were interesting. I think it was empowering for them to have an opportunity to express their opinion and to use materials they had learned in my course and in other courses they had taken to support their opinions. After the class was over, I realized that the discussion was spontaneous and creative and completely outside my assessment plan for the course. Is that a bad thing?

At times, I have found the assessment process to be exhausting and occasionally frustrating, but it has revealed a lot about how I teach and what and how my students learn. My teaching has changed, hopefully for the better, because of it. But I hope that assessment does not evolve in a way that suppresses spontaneity and creativity in the classroom; I do not ever want to hear myself say to a class that we do not have time for discussion (or some other activity) because it is not in the assessment plan. I feel that the interchange that occurred in my class was as valuable to the students’ learning experience as a well conceived and constructed SLO.

One final thought – someone might suggest that I could have anticipated the possibility of discussion and designed a rubric to assess it, but it was pleasant to listen and participate without having to keep score.

How Much is Too Much?: Balancing the Course Content

Guest Writer, Lynnette Mawhinney

Fifteen weeks. Fifteen weeks is what we, as faculty, are given in order to provide our students with foundational knowledge to be utilized in the workforce. For the last six years I have been teaching in higher education, I continually find myself overwhelmed at the beginning of the semester. I am trying to think how I can fit all the vital information my students need in order to be successful teachers themselves. How am I supposed to do that in fifteen weeks!?!

But faculty historically find a way to cram all the information students need to know into a lecture form. On the other hand, as we are taught early on in teaching, all information needs to be scaffolded (Lev Vygotsky). So we slow down, break the information up, and reinforce it with hands-on activities. We find a pace that suits the students and ourselves.

Yet, I cannot seem to get my mind around a keynote speech I saw this summer. Howard Gardner, father of multiple intelligence theory, said that faculty should take one important concept they would want their students to know in an hour. Then take that same concept and break it up over the course of a whole semester. As one who teachers Educational Psychology, I immediately think, “he’s right!” This is the most effective way for our students to retain information. Although, at the end of fifteen weeks, it is only one concept they know, when they will need multiple concepts for the workforce.

So I am left asking the question, how much is too much content? Where is the balance between covering all the content students need to be successful verses overloading them with information they will never retain?