Martin raised a great point with me after class on Monday. He questioned what do teachers do in order to protect/prepare/guide students' emotions around highly emotional topics. This reminded me of, although something like the movie "
Avatar" (PG 13) is pop culture and raises fantastic issues around technology, being human, war, and identity, what might some students feel about the issues of war, violence, fear, etc? How do we not censor such important topics and yet, prepare and guide our students in practical ways?
4 comments:
I can remember in my school having discussions in class about war and past and present conflicts. We did discuss the wars with topics like who vs. who and the reasons etc., but we never did get into the violence or really indepth with the topics. Thinking back this was probably becuase the teachers didn't want to get into issues closely watched due to censorship and also the parents concerns with what their child is learning at school.
I would hope that issues in todays society including violence, war, and fear can be discussed in classes, as I do believe that students are able to understand and reflect on topics that many adults try to protect them from.
It may also open an avenue of dialect for those students who need to discuss these topics, but otherwise feel unable to.
I understand the reasons behind censorship, but it can be to the extreme with certain topics.
From my experience working with kids in a variety of situations, I've learned to let the child lead discussions around sensitive subjects. It doesn't matter if you are the teacher, parent or nanny - but its so important to listen. The child will be able to feel secure in sharing his/her thoughts on a subject, and its up the adult to be listen and clear up any misconceptions. If a child asks questions, (no matter if they are 5 or 15) its our job to answer age appropriately and within the confines of our role. It's important that when we hit the edge of our comfort zone that we encourage our students to talk to their parents about hot topics and open the dialogue with other adults in their lives.
If something happens, ("a teachable moment?") its the same thing - let the students lead to a point, enforce boundaries which are respectful, sensitive to all view points, ethical, etc... and listen. It might even be something that you may not feel comfortable addressing right then and there - but why not say "I"m going to think about this and we'll look at it tomorrow" and then redirect.
I've had some pretty amazing moments - mostly with my young charges - where I have encountered some pretty uncomfortable topics. Some are the random comments you get from kids like "I saw mommy and daddy naked" or "where do babies come from?"... but I'll never forget the day my 7 year old charge came home from school and wanted to know what "sewer side" was. She said "well, why did 'Jane' say my mommy went sewer side?" How do you explain to a 7 year old that her mother killed herself? sigh - It's been about 11 years since this happened... but I remember asking her what she thought sewer side meant and she thought it meant her mom went crazy because "jane" did a sign for crazy with her hand but maybe she meant mommy jumped over the ditch in the front yard.
I asked her if that made sense - and she said no, so I told her that sometimes kids say things that they don't understand. She said "yeah I asked Jane what is sewer side and Jane said she didn't know". Whew - so we had a chat about how mommy died - age appropriately for her siblings as well - they were told mommy was sick and made a choice to go to heaven. Always we talked about how much her mom loved her, and remembered the good things - and encouraged her to go snuggle with her dad or just redirect to something more light hearted. This child is going to be 18 in June - I wonder what her thoughts are now. I wonder what she remembers and how her understanding has developed over time of this sensitive topic. We're facebook friends, and sometimes she and her sister will ask me questions about their parents.
My sponsor teacher actually brought up something similar to this and had some interesting points.
He had this one video that went with a novel that had some fairly graphic domestic abuse. (Husband full on punches his wife in the face, etc.)
One year, he knew about half his class came from homes where domestic abuse had occurred, so for that year he decided to forgo the movie. He felt he would be unable to adequately walk-through and debrief half his class if the video brought up those emotions.
When delving in this sort of emotional territory/ censorship he said.
1) Know your class- so you know what will be an issue.
2) If you're moving into highly emotional areas, are you able and willing to deal with the fallout? If not, he would consider proceeding forward anyways very irresponsible as a professional.
I actually already ran into a censorship issue this year. A toc wanted to show The Dead Poets Society, and had already shown the first half. I was going to do a lesson on the second half of it. This movie has a suicide at the end of it, which can be an issue for parents. I discussed with my supervisor around this. I think the best way to deal with this is to send home a sheet that asks the parents if it's okay to watch the movie. Anyone who hasn't brought back the signed sheet has to do something else for the class, in another room. It's difficult though, because this is a really great movie and can be used in a poetry unit really easy, but there is one scene that can prevent you from showing it to the class.
The class didn't actually get to see the end of the movie, because the dvd was missing.
It's difficult to find ways around these sort of problems...
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