Facing Resistance in a Diverse Classroom
This past semester, I had a challenging class. It was composed of career students, many of whom had never spoken about racism and racial equity within their classes. I framed the discussion in the fact that many of them would be moving into careers in the public service and, therefore, needed to be careful with language and opinions at work. As I introduced the terms that they needed to know, I noticed some resistance and defensiveness, which only got worse when I began to talk about White Privilege and anti-Black racism in North America. There was a contingent of students who denied the existence of these things – believing that racism only happens elsewhere. When I showed them concrete evidence – news stories, statistics, interviews, etc. – some still resisted, claiming that what I was showing them came from left-leaning media and research.
Balancing Safety and Personal Expression
In some ways it felt as though there was no winning, and my main concern was racialized students in the class, who may be feeling triggered and unsafe by hearing their peers express these perspectives. I want all my students to feel safe, but what do I do when some students’ idea of safety and personal expression infringes on the safety of other students, particularly when those other students are already minoritized and marginalized. Do I redo my syllabus to avoid talking about these difficult topics? Do I double down? If I stop talking about these topics, then, ultimately, I am maintaining the status quo and not helping my students to grow and learn. But if I continue to talk about them, am I putting my minoritized students at risk?
And here is where I was so glad that I had done the work early in the course to set up how the class community needed to function. I brought the Classroom Guidelines we had created during our first class back into the classroom and put them on the board. I asked the students what these precepts meant to them – what does kindness look like? What does violence and damage look like and even sound like? Through using the classroom guidelines, I was able to remind my students how they should behave in the classroom and that their words have the power to cause damage.
Co-constructing the Syllabus
The other thing that I did was try to empower my students in a way that was safe for all the students by asking them to brainstorm texts (stories, poems, songs, movies) that they’d like to study in the second part of the semester. Further, I had them discuss possible assignments that would speak to their skills and strengths. While all my students may not have agreed with my politics and perspective, allowing them to have input on what they studied and how they were assessed helped reengage all of them in the class. And, as it turns out, many of my students did want to talk about racism, colonialism, misogyny, classism and other types of inequity. So I was able to teach Thomas King stories and the movie Get Out and some songs by Taylor Swift…but now the class clearly knew what reactions were acceptable and unacceptable according to our guidelines.
Final Reflections
My class just wrapped up last week, and I have been receiving some pretty wonderful feedback from my students. One student whose smile and positive attitude had helped me get through some challenging moments in the class, wrote me this:
“I’m writing to tell you that I really enjoyed your class this semester. It was very entertaining and insightful. I really liked the way you taught, especially during challenging moments. Your class often lead me to ponder and ask myself questions that expanded my understanding.”
So classes can sometimes go a bit off the rails and lead us into murky waters, but the classroom guidelines and giving your students some space to discuss what they’d like to study, can definitely set things back on track.