Re: talking about it.

[Larry Beason <lbeason@USAMAIL.USOUTHAL.EDU>]

I think indeed we need to think more about how a teacher approaches class
after crises.  I spoke with my English-ed majors in my writing pedagogy
course; they were concerned that their ed teachers had not talked about
either the terrorism or how they as prospective teachers should deal with
class dicussions.  My class had a discussion we found productive and
useful, for the K-12 teachers generally have to deal with responding to
such crises more so than college teachers--not just bombings but suicides
and other crises that seem to affect a school community.

To illustrate the complexities and perhaps explain why some teachers do
not talk about crises, consider this.  I just got off the phone with an
angry dean of students who is trying to deal with a rumor that members of
our baseball team beat up some international students.  Police have found
no truth to this.  One of my teachers mentioned this rumor in a
conscientious way (before knowing it was a rumor), but some students went
to the dean saying the rumor must be true because the teacher talked about
it.

My wife, who teaches 4th grade, was reprimanded by a parent because the
class briefly discussed the news on Tuesday; the parent said that she goes
to great lengths to protect her child from knowing such violence exists.

The other 4th-grade teacher was given a note by a--literally--flag-waving
student; the note indicated her parents were insluted because that teacher
DID NOT talk about the crises with students.

In another class on campus (not a comp class thank goodness), a physical
altercation almost broke out during a class discussion led by a teacher
who thought he was doing the right thing (and perhaps did, despite
allowing the discussion to get out of hand).

In a comp class, a TA had his class very seriously turn on him (not
physically) on Tues because he tried to help them see that the terrorists'
actions were wrong but that their concerns might be legitimate.  He didn't
understand until too late that 'learning moments' for class sometimes need
to wait until students' emotions have settled a bit.  Sometimes addressing
cognitive aspect of what we do isn't as important as giving space for the
affective.

I have no point here except that we need to think not only about the value
of our discussions but how to handle them.  I don't believe most of us
have been adequately prepared for this how to approach this particular
type of situation, but we must realize the possibility that we might be
making things worse as well as better.

larry beason

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Larry Beason
Director of Composition
Dept. of English, Univ. of South Alabama
Mobile, AL 36688
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