The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

"There’s a saying common in education circles: Don’t teach students what to think; teach them how to think. The idea goes back at least as far as Socrates. Today, what we call the Socratic method is a way of teaching that fosters critical thinking, in part by encouraging students to question their own unexamined beliefs, as well as the received wisdom of those around them. Such questioning sometimes leads to discomfort, and even to anger, on the way to understanding.


The Coddling of the American Mind.

Spare me.

Once again, "hey, people should be treated with respect: also, there's all kinds of bullshit that is lurking under supposedly innocuous statements" is interpreted by whiny right wingers as "WAAAAAAH YOU'RE IMPINGING ON FREEEDOMMM OF SPEEEEECH" with a side order of concern trolling about ~mental health.~

There have been a few articles of this sort lately, as cited by the authors in their first few paragraphs, and every single one has been circulated among humanities and social science academics--to whom the bulk of the theorizing, discussion, and teaching of systems of privilege and oppression has fallen--and every single time it has been met with hoots of derision from those of us who, you know, actually teach this stuff. The standard response among my academic friends was, "....uh, I'm not afraid of my liberal students. WTF is wrong with this person that they ARE?"

For the following reasons:

1. The articulation of discourses of privilege and systems of microaggressions is VERY MUCH something that we should be teaching. It is a "how to think" thing that these authors seem ever so concerned about: it's a pretty fucking basic thing in scholarship to learn to question received knowledge, and to give students the tools to do so.

2. Systems of patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativity, Christian-centrism, ableism, etc etc etc are the very definition of "received knowledge": they are the basic organizing principles of Western society. While a lot of the super-obvious markers of these systems have been swept away (women can vote, it's illegal to discriminate based on race, same-sex marriage is now legal), a LOT of shit remains. And it often takes a fair amount of knowledge and critical thinking to be able to see that and articulate it--especially because a big part of the received knowledge is "sexism/racism/etc was all a long time ago, it's not a problem anymore!" So, you know, teaching students about, say, Ferguson, involves a LOT of teaching them about things like language and cultural logics and metanarratives--in other words, giving them crucial "how to think" tools.

3. Getting a college education is a privilege lots of people don't have. So just by the fact of being there, students learning about these systems of received knowledge are placed into the uncomfortable space of examining their own privilege as college students. In schools/classes that are demographically more white/male/straight/Christian/etc, it gets even more uncomfortable for them. Which it should be. If you're a decent person who likes to think deeply about things, it's not fun to realize all the ways in which you have been blind and unknowing and hurt people and benefited from others' pain. But that's the learning process. And moreover, you're getting the tools to examine and articulate things about culture/society/history/your own life that you didn't have and may not have realized before. Pretty much the definition of learning.

4. Those of us who live in the real world as women, POCs, lgbtq+, survivors, disabled people, etc., are extremely aware of how very much the world does NOT give a shit about our issues, and refuses to take them seriously. College is often a place where people who belong to oppressed groups can, if they're lucky, gain access to those "how to think" systems that can help them articulate their experiences. Again, if they're lucky.

5. College, like, you know, everything else, has traditionally been a place that reinforced many of the dominant social narratives: the discomfort of people who weren't white or male or straight or whatever was ignored and brushed aside, in order to comfortably-discomfort the Important Students. If anyone else isn't comfortable in these spaces, it's THEIR fault for not being TOUGH enough or committed enough to REAL LEARNING which is SUPPOSED to discomfort you!!1! Except, funny, the students made the most uncomfortable, and uncomfortable in unproductive ways, in these learning environments were always the ones who were and are disprivileged in other larger ways.

4. So the REAL point of all these handwringing pieces, is NOT that students are being omg ~shielded~ from all discomfort. It's that the WRONG PEOPLE'S (women, survivors, POCs, lgbtq+) concerns are being taken seriously, and therefore the WRONG PEOPLE (men, white people, straight people) are being made uncomfortable.

5. And even so, all those straight white dudes who are omg so uncomfortable still get to inhabit the entire rest of the world as Real People in a way that others have to fight for.

6. So once again, the whole "political correctness/trigger warnings GONE MAD!!!1!" is a disingenuous attempt to assert that people, who in real life have to deal with all kinds of bars and constraints on their right to be treated with basic human respect, are REALLY the ones with ACTUAL power and we should all be WORRIED. I'd love to inhabit this world where microaggressions/triggers/etc were taken that seriously, because this one sure as fuck ain't it.

So, in my considered academic opinion, which is shared by a metric ton of my colleagues, this is some absurdist dada-level whiny bullshit.

This is the reason why trigger warnings for classroom stuff exists: to give MORE information to help students make decisions about the classes they want to take (and/or be strategically absent for).

This is something I'm not understanding. Trigger warnings are just that: warnings. But those against them seem to be implying that if something "needs a warning" it equals something "no longer being taught or discussed".  

That can't be the case.

I'd love to inhabit this world where microaggressions/triggers/etc were taken that seriously, because this one sure as fuck ain't it.

 
I fully agree with both of your posts, but I just wanted to jump off this part right here to share an experience that I had at my university.

At my university, when I politely asked a teacher to speak a little slower than mile-a-minute so I could take down notes, he said "Why don't you just try listening?" I explained to him -- or started to explain -- my learning disabilities (which normally I can work around and don't usually require special assistance from disability services or anything; been coping for my entire life with this crap so I might be slow but I can do it -- but if a teacher is speaking so fast he's basically talking gibberish, I cannot do all the workaround there). He laughed in my face and incited the class to laugh and jeer at me too.

This is the same teacher who once marked a few test answers wrong on my ex-wife's test (giving her a C instead of a B) and, when she went and showed him, using another student's test (with permission) to show where she'd been right and he marked her wrong, he said "I'm not going to change it because you probably got something else wrong anyway." (My ex-wife also has learning disabilities and has always struggled with school.)

We complained to the dean about how this teacher treated students with disabilities, and basically got told to go fuck ourselves (not in so many words).

"Why I dropped out of theatre and almost burned down the building for 1000, Alex."

Compare that absolute embarrassment, humiliation, hot sick feeling in the pit of my stomach like it was high school again, to the necessary discomfort I felt when learning the true history of First Nations people in Canada in the classes I switched to after dropping theatre -- well, there's not really any comparison. There's no question that learning was *not* going to happen in theatre, but it absolutely did in First Nations studies. Because even though the subjects covered might cause discomfort, the classes were also (mostly) supportive environments for students to tell their stories and be respected. There was a proper balance that led to true growth and understanding.

I sure wish more of university were like those classes.

Oh wow. I am so sorry that shit happened to you. That professor was a thorough asshole, and that kind of behavior is inexcusable. Unfortunately, there are plenty of departments and schools where that kind of crap still goes on. And that is a much much MUCH bigger, more widespread, and far more serious problem than "omg we're ~coddling~ students by being sensitive!!1!"

 
As a disabled student I can identify with Morag's story. It's amazing how many professors I've met who refuse to make accommodations and take it as a personal slight if they are forced to. It's a humiliating experience.

Which is why I'm having some trouble believing that western university campuses have really become so 'PC'-obsessed that teachers can't teach anymore. I've seen similar insensitivity over race, gender, non-standard gender presentation, transgender, and sexuality. And those are just the times where I've been *aware* of the insensitivity or discrimination.

On the other hand, as a teacher I'm learning to give trigger warnings at appropriate times. And it doesn't limit my teaching at all. I was once teaching a Intro to Gender Studies course where, during the opening lecture, I gave some statistics about rape conviction rates. A very thoughtful and mature student came up to me afterwards and asked if I could warn the class in future if rape was going to come up. She was in the middle of a rape court case and finding the subject understandably difficult. I realised I'd made a mistake, apologised, and gave the class a warning about the upcoming session on gender and violence. I don't remember that many students chose not to come to the session, although a few might have done. Since I always share my notes and resources via the uni intranet with students who don't come to the session, anyone who chose not to come was able to research the topic on their own. And it didn't affect my teaching content one bit.

On the other hand, as a teacher I'm learning to give trigger warnings at appropriate times. And it doesn't limit my teaching at all. I was once teaching a Intro to Gender Studies course where, during the opening lecture, I gave some statistics about rape conviction rates. A very thoughtful and mature student came up to me afterwards and asked if I could warn the class in future if rape was going to come up. She was in the middle of a rape court case and finding the subject understandably difficult. I realised I'd made a mistake, apologised, and gave the class a warning about the upcoming session on gender and violence. I don't remember that many students chose not to come to the session, although a few might have done. Since I always share my notes and resources via the uni intranet with students who don't come to the session, anyone who chose not to come was able to research the topic on their own. And it didn't affect my teaching content one bit.

I've been wanting to reply to this thread but so many things have become muddled up . The issues of a disabled student's access or bigotry is not the same as course content.

I will only address the academic issue. Why would anyone taking a 'gender issues' class *not* expect the subject of rape to come up? And you were only giving *statistics*, not graphic narratives of rape (I assume).
Also, was this person proposing to stay away from the whole issue of rape? I mean, fine. If someone isn't ready because there is an intertwining of their issues with the subject of rape, they should sit it out. But then I guess they should also sit out a lot of Literature, most of early and modern history and pretty much all of the Humanities. Even the area of science can be pretty fraught unless one sticks to things like physics or chemistry.

Indeed, perhaps University calendars should come with a 'Trigger Warning' right on them "Attending university may subject you to information of a graphic and unsavory kind. Please, *do not* attend this university if you are unable to cope with such information" . If someone cannot  face even the statistics of bad things, how on earth are they going to cope with descriptive aspects of so many areas? If stories of rape, genocide and general horror are overwhelming, forget ancient studies of Literature and history including the Old Testament. Too bad about Shakespeare but he has to get thrown on the 'may trigger, avoid' pile. ancient and moder history, ditto. Any of the Social Sciences. Even if one is majoring in a subject area, they will be required to show ability in other areas as well.

And I have a feeling avoiding any and all possible unpleasantness will create huge lacunae in a person's syllabus will leave them quite short on knowledge.

And seriously? If someone can't take even hearing about the statistics of rape, how is the 'rape culture' that is so much spoken of now ever going to find enough people who know about it to help change it?

It's not *pleasant* to hear about FGM or rape being used as a weapon of war but if people shield their eyes from this harshness, the people who suffer from it lose the hope of the information even ...getting...out and listened to.

I am not speaking of disability or bigotry. These need to be addressed to make the academic setting safe and fruitful. But to start warning people away from academic subjects is not the answer. These are classrooms, not halloween haunted houses using sometimes frightening information as jump scares.  The kinds of things I'm reading of ( not *all* of it, just some of it) seem to not only shield, but have the potential to reward spurious emotional sensitivity to real-world information and impoverish developing intellect. Knowledge needs information to grow and not all of that information will be easy to listen to.

And I'm sorry, but a lot of this strikes me as as very neo-Victorian. People have the vapours over academic information on things like rape in literature or the horrors of war then go home and lap up shows like 'Game of Thrones' . I call bullshit.

These also serve as a distraction for those people who have serious problems that need addressing. If everyone requires a fainting room, chances are those in need of help will, as usual, be pushed out of the way so that those that require their frivolous 'sensitivities' to be pandered to will get their 'needs' met.  

*Everybody* whose been through university gets stuck with an asshole professor. Never met a person who didn't. If that professor impedes a students needs, there are avenues to deal with them (and I've seen it done too many times. There are some bad profs. out there and thankfully, students are realizing that they are paying for this, and they don't need to take grief from the teacher). I've sat on committees to try and deal with this crap.

But it was the exception, not the rule.

And if the professor is just a jerk or a bad teacher and the student can't cope ( with what is after all, a semester, not four years of the same person) what will these people do when they get out in the world and get landed with an asshole boss?

If we create an atmosphere where nobody is ever nudged out of their comfort zone and made to *think* , they will never learn. Or, their learning will be shallow and a waste of time and money for them.

Please, anyone that thinks 'Gender Studies' will not include the very real problems to be found there has been living too long in some fantasy land where such things can't happen,  or are hushed up if they do. Isn't this a big problem at a lot of universities now? That this goes on but doesn't get talked about?

If the time has come that teachers have to *apologize* before hand for dealing with very real subjects that need to be spoken of openly and are a part of the course content, well. I despair of anything changing.

I am not speaking of disability or bigotry. These need to be addressed to make the academic setting safe and fruitful. But to start warning people away from academic subjects is not the answer.

If we create an atmosphere where nobody is ever nudged out of their comfort zone and made to *think* , they will never learn.

There's a huge middle ground between "nobody is ever nudged out of their comfort zone and made to think, they will never learn" and an atmosphere that is harmful and calls itself challenging (and where people never learn, either.)

Trigger warnings provide that middle ground.

What's so difficult about trusting other people to understand that a class contains material that could be triggering, and so...here's a zany idea...thinking for themselves about how they're going to handle it? It's not like robbing the wormwood from the absinthe, it's more like putting a health warning on a cigarette pack.

This is not that much more difficult to institutionalize as it allows for a whole lot more individualization. But if you propose the notion of merely allowing for individualization won't improve a society made up of navigating the challenges of coexisting with individuals, or that you already have a universally applicable idea about what is harm versus what is challenge for every and all other individuals and thus the prevalance of trigger warnings are already coddling people who, what, ought to be discarded as chaff(?) for their sensitivities then I can't meet you where you're coming from.  I don't believe the marker for accomplishment should be how many jerks and tragedies a person can surround themselves with. I do believe that everybody goes as far as it takes to be comfortable, to perpetuate the familiar--but maybe people who have hardly had to budge at all, (say, at trigger-distance) would take that for granted, and if one has that security and fortitude, then everyone else already does and people who complain about being triggered are just whining. How did considering individual sensitivities through trigger warnings become a conspiracy to extract quality content from academic environments? My guess is a misunderstanding and misuse of trigger warnings.

There's a huge middle ground between "nobody is ever nudged out of their comfort zone and made to think, they will never learn" and an atmosphere that is harmful and calls itself challenging (and where people never learn, either.)

Trigger warnings provide that middle ground.

What's so difficult about trusting other people to understand that a class contains material that could be triggering, and so...here's a zany idea...thinking for themselves about how they're going to handle it? It's not like robbing the wormwood from the absinthe, it's more like putting a health warning on a cigarette pack.


My guess is a misunderstanding and misuse of trigger warnings.

There's a huge middle ground between "nobody is ever nudged out of their comfort zone and made to think, they will never learn" and an atmosphere that is harmful and calls itself challenging (and where people never learn, either.)

Trigger warnings provide that middle ground.

What's so difficult about trusting other people to understand that a class contains material that could be triggering, and so...here's a zany idea...thinking for themselves about how they're going to handle it? It's not like robbing the wormwood from the absinthe, it's more like putting a health warning on a cigarette pack.

 My guess is a misunderstanding and misuse of trigger warnings.

There's a huge middle ground between "nobody is ever nudged out of their comfort zone and made to think, they will never learn" and an atmosphere that is harmful and calls itself challenging (and where people never learn, either.)

Trigger warnings provide that middle ground.

What's so difficult about trusting other people to understand that a class contains material that could be triggering, and so...here's a zany idea...thinking for themselves about how they're going to handle it? It's not like robbing the wormwood from the absinthe, it's more like putting a health warning on a cigarette pack.

 My guess is a misunderstanding and misuse of trigger warnings.

You could be right about about misunderstandings and maybe I'm not getting it in so far as I've seen the term's application in this thread and other places, mainly on line. I haven't seen this being applied in real life except on movie ratings or warnings of graphic content in news stories ( which I then will avoid).

What got me thinking was when another poster wrote:
"I also warn for specific texts. I actually did have a student who was wildly triggered by the rape scenes in Ovid's Metamorphoses. She came and talked to me about it: she said that if she'd KNOWN there were rape scenes in the text, she'd have been able to mentally prepare herself. It was the "without warning" part that messed her up. I saw that just because I, a rape survivor, wasn't personally triggered by it, doesn't mean that others couldn't be--and that it is ANTITHETICAL to learning to make students so upset that they can't process what it is we're talking about."

Perhaps I am over estimating what people are already exposed to by the age of university? I read the Greek and Roman myths as a child and I assumed they are still taught in schools or read to children by their parents. I find Ovid quite tame but that's just a matter of style, the content of many ancient texts (including books like the Bible) are simply full of terrible things. Can it be that someone is so under-educated that they don't *expect* such things in Greek or Roman Literature? How on earth could someone with even a passing knowledge of ancient literature be 'surprised' by a rape scene in Ovid?

So yes, I would be expecting someone taking a course in Greek or Roman literature to be aware that some of the myths have incredible acts of violation , torment and abuse and trusting that people who would be badly effected by such things to not take the course.How is  assuming this throwing someone under the bus?

The alternative is what another poster warned aptly about: the teacher has to take the role of therapist because a student is 'surprised' at content. That's not a teacher's job.

 The teacher *must* assume the pupils have some knowledge of their personal sensitive areas and will take courses accordingly. I don't think assuming that someone who takes ancient studies would be devoid of any previous information about that area is a realistic expectation.

Or perhaps I'm wrong and it is? Has pre-university education been dumbed down to that extent?

And what is being proposed by these 'trigger warnings' in terms of content that is deliberately placed in a work as an integral part of the structure of the art of the author? Do teachers give spoilers out in the form of 'trigger warnings' and warn about the endings of , for example, 'The Great Gatsby'  or 'The Day of the Locusts?  What about warnings like " Sgt. Troy's lover whom he heartlessly abandons after impregnating her, dies hungry and alone after giving birth to his child (who also dies) in the horrors of a workhouse. Just warning you students about something nasty in 'Far from the Madding Crowd'? How would one even begin to warn about some of Shakespeare plays that can turn very dark very fast? And strike Webster's 'TheDuchess of Malf' off the curriculum all together . And for sure, 'Last Exit to Brooklyn'. That's a horrifying book. Forget that in many ways it was pivotal for that time period.

And that's just literature. Think about History, Sociology , Anthropology , Urban Studies, Women Studies and so forth. Like I wrote, the whole damn University Calendar is just fraught with courses that may contain some pretty emotionally difficult stuff. I don't even think one *could* teach about genocide or the plight of women and children in developing nations.


I don't think infantilizing people by assuming broad ignorance does anybody any favours. As I said earlier, who, taking Gender Studies, would *not* assume that sexual abuse would come into it? And modifying content is not an option if we want people to be informed about these most important issues.

It's not coddling people, it's assuming they are responsible and reasonably informed about 1) themselves and 2) the world around them.

In fact, it's just the opposite of treating people like chaff, it's addressing the fundamental individuality of people to understand that different lives have different narratives and that the person living that life is aware of their own.

Yes, in some instances, people can be caught unaware, especially by the power of the artist to capture or describe a moment and they may suddenly find there an understanding about themselves they didn't have before. That is the power of the Arts, of learning. To strip them down, eliminate 'surprise' and rob them of that power does no service to learning or to the people thus effected.

Life cannot be scripted. To start people out in life by attempting to script it and eliminating anything unpleasant or even horrible can actually erode people's coping mechanisms. One of the things which can make P.T.S.D. so hard to get past is avoidant behavior. So is it being proposed that we help  in developing this? That's just...cruel. And I will never sign on for endorsing ignorance by leaving out the 'bad' bits. I trust people to stay away from areas that would harm them.

And also, unless someone has lived in a cave for a number of years, I also assume people have seen the news or magazines or just talked to other people. I guess I just don't think people are as fragile as they are being portrayed here.  That's *not* saying the people writing here are not that fragile, but in a class of 300, there will be few who will be 'surprised'  on hearing about acts of violence in literature or anywhere in the Humanities.

For every person haunted by a memory, there is another who found solace and knew they were not alone in what they suffer by what they experienced in the Art and Learning they encounter. And who can can predict it and thus prepare for it?  And how is it going to be decided what is 'fit' for people to learn or are we going to steer people away with scare stories and tell them they will take harm from areas that they have *already decided* to explore?

Some things that 'trigger' people will erode and fade and sometimes, new ones will arise. We cannot foresee nor prepare for every single instance in every single person. At least, I don't see how. And that is not a statement of unconcern for those that hurt. That is just a statement about trying to help *thousands* of people navigate through academia.

There is an easy answer to someone who is becoming upset by what they hear - get up and leave. It's what they would do outside university, why not in it as well?

I have a belief that a student should take the whole course, not just parts of it. If one came to me and said what they heard upset them, I would suggest they go see the campus counselors and would also tell them I would be happy to sign their drop form so they could leave the class and see they were not academically punished for their withdrawal from the course. And that is all...I could do.