How Do We Handle Difficult Conversations in the Classroom?

This past week, our country witnessed an attack on democracy in the Capitol. Over the past year, we have seen the racial injustice, political strife, and an election that divided our nation. A global pandemic has consumed our lives, led to national shutdowns and economic crises. While there has been great despair and challenging times, we have also witnessed the creation of vaccines in record time, leadership from healthcare professionals, and so many essential workers' sacrifices. To be a child attempting to grapple with these issues and understand the world must be incredibly challenging and confusing. As educators, it is our responsibility to provide a sense of safety, support, and normalcy in times that are anything but ordinary. 

The layers of these issues and the nuances of handling politics in a K-12 classroom fall into grey areas that I have struggled to understand this past week. I have a duty to my students, who are all seniors in high school, to make them feel safe, validate their feelings of anxiety/fear/confusion, and to help them to find credible sources on which to draw a deeper understanding of the world around them. As a speech teacher, I cannot allow voices to be silent. Still, as a teacher in a predominantly conservative community teaching on Zoom, I must remain unbiased in my approach. There is no answer or guidebook on handling tough conversations when event after event of 2020 seems to have led to chaos and unrest. Still, through my reflections and the experiences of conversations with my classes this week, I have come to a few conclusions. 

The week before the initial COVID shut down, I started each class period sitting on my desk in the front of the room, asking students to share what they had learned about the situation, express how they were feeling, and ask any questions they may have had. It was easy to read the physical room and see their nonverbals. Allowing time and space to react collectively was more straightforward in person. On Zoom in the first week of a semester with all new students, I was unsure of how to safely and appropriately approach this conversation. Using Google Forms, Pear Deck (Which also came in handy during the week of the election), Flipgrid, and the Zoom chat, I could at least open the door to supporting my students through this unprecedented week. 

Effective communicators are good listeners. We need our students to know that we are here to listen. 

When discussing literacy in the classroom, conversations often revolve around reading and writing. Since we speak every day, we all must be well versed in oral communication, right? That assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. And while countless teachers often include speaking activities and presentations into their curriculum, we often overlook or forget to teach students how to be better listeners explicitly. This undervalued skill needs first to be modeled. I started class on Friday, stating that I was there to listen. Waiting in a few moments of awkward silence, I noticed that students sat taller in those moments. They scanned the screens. They were waiting to listen, too. While I have always struggled with wait time, I have learned that given students a few moments of silence to reflect, react, and process can lead to richer conversations and make students feel heard even if they do not unmute. 

Validating their fears and uncertainties is important. When people are scared, confused, and upset - they need to be told that their less than normal feelings in a less than normal time are valid. 

At one point this summer, a person used the words "We must have faith over fear" that we will be safe in schools during the pandemic. As a person of faith myself, I could not be more frustrated that a person would choose to 1. Use my faith against me, and 2. Disregard my very rational fears about the unknowns of the pandemic (Especially having a child with a chronic lung disease). My feelings then and now are real, rooted in science, and completely normal in unprecedented times. Likewise, my students' feelings and reactions to the Capitol, racial injustice, the election, COVID, and many other countless events in 2020 are real. Students have expressed a significant range of emotions and beliefs, and regardless of my own beliefs, it is my job to validate their feelings. There is no guidebook for coping with collective trauma. Healing often starts when a person feels heard. Teachers are not a counselor or social workers, but at the very least, we can make our students feel listened to and help them to take the next steps to seek out further help from trained professionals if needed. 

Teachers need to provide students with opportunities to give voice to their thoughts and ideas. 

Once students feel validated and safe, they are more likely to speak. While students are not required to share their ideas publicly, they can use their voices in various ways. Students can write, reflect, and post using tools like Pear Deck, Google Forms, and Flipgrid in anonymous ways that allow them to express themselves, release tension, and gain the confidence to continue to share their voices in future situations. Our students will be leaders in this country, and if we do not address these issues -- if we do not encourage THEM to address these issues, these issues will never be solved. These activities or opportunities do not have to be all-consuming. Teachers can start small with short and private SEL check-ins, but they need to be present in our classrooms no matter the modality of learning. 

Students need to be told that they can ask questions and need to know how to find credible sources and discern truth from fiction. 

In addition to expressing themselves, students need to know that it is okay to ask questions. No teacher has all the answers to any subject, but we know how to find answers. We know how to research and discern credible sources. We can separate biases and understand the range of biases in media outlets. As teachers, we can empower our students to do the same. Credibility and accuracy matters and can make all the difference in the decisions they make, the beliefs they hold, and the values that our students perpetuate out into the world for years to come. 

Did I do enough this week to support my students through yet another trauma of 2020(now 2021)? I do not know. Did I provide them with the opportunity to speak and to reflect? Yes. Our students need to be empowered to take a stand. Their words are powerful; my greatest hope as their teacher is that they will continue to use them well.