Dodging awkward discussions in class comes at a price
Is it self-censorship or wisdom to take the reactions of parents and students into account when making educational choices? Teachers weigh things up: 'I regularly restrain myself anyway.'
“Nowadays I show less that I am in the progressive corner,” says Gijs van Gaans. “Because if I am too clear about that, I am sometimes told that I belong to the left-wing church.” Van Gaans is a history teacher, teacher trainer, didactician and researcher into the theme of sensitive history in education.
What is sensitive differs per class, per school, per region. One class discusses gender variation frankly and freely, the other gets restless from homosexual love in a reading text. Denial of the Holocaust is a major exception, says Van Gaans. He did have students who rated the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US as one Inside job.
You can read this article for free from the Education Magazine of January 2023. Would you like to stay informed of everything that is happening in education? Join the AOb! And receive the Education magazine ten times a year.
CHECK ALL THE BENEFITS OF MEMBERSHIP
In primary education, the home front also plays a part. For example, Sofie van de Waart Govaert, a columnist at the newspaper Trouw, was criticized by e-mail when she had exhibited a historic doctor's kit, including the duckbill for internal examination of women. Traumatizing for the young girls, said a parent who immediately called in the director. The doctor's kit went back in the closet.
Is it self-censorship or wisdom to take the reactions of parents and students into account when making educational choices? Van de Waart doesn't know the answer: "As king in the classroom, you can know for yourself what you say there, but I regularly restrain myself."
Swallow words
There is no research on the extent to which teachers in the Netherlands swallow their words, keep thoughts to themselves or otherwise practice self-censorship. A small tour of education indicates that it happens more than once. Jos van Remundt, writer and former philosophy of life teacher at Saxion, has seen the caution among students and novice teachers grow for years.
How safe are confrontations during recess when there are only a few teachers in the square?
To his chagrin, opposing forces remain weak. Education, school boards, experts, they all hide painful social issues under the pretext that it must be safe at school, he says. “How safe are confrontations during recess when there are only a few teachers on the square? Bullying is not only about physical, but also about emotional, manipulative behavior. Come out of the teachers' lounge, learn to deal with it, let the kids admit it.”
One of the views with which Van Remundt does not make himself popular: primary school students are taught not to ask questions and they learn too little to survive in schools where the children inherit different cultures and religions from home. “Books about philosophy of life are too much about fear and prejudice. It is better for students not to ask questions about headscarves, shaking hands, the mosque, because such questions arise, they are told, from fear and prejudice. Under the guise of tolerance and respect, they hardly receive substantive information. While in this fragmented society we should sit down together, ask each other questions about the things that most people in education do not want to hear.”
You notice in everything that the class is polarizing along with society
No wonder teachers keep the peace by remaining silent, argues Van Remundt. Based on information from his foundation Echelon and teacher training experiences, he presents one disturbing case study after another: students who demanded that the Quran be on the top shelf of the library to keep the holy book clean, a director with understanding for parents who wanted to ban reading from Harry Potter, girls who were called whores because they had bare legs under their dress. “And the parents are told: you can put pants on that child, right? Of course, families then flee the city.”
homogeneous audience
What happens to teachers when they avoid awkward discussions? When does caution turn into indulgence? Few teaching colleagues want to talk about this by name. Directors of the Dutch and history trade associations recognize the phenomenon from stories of colleagues, not from their own experience.
“You can see from everything that the class is polarizing along with society,” says Rogier Spanjers, vice-chairman of the Association of History and Political Science teachers in the Netherlands. “I have heard colleagues who were accused of knowing better as a white man. It is exciting to arm yourself against this, but it does provide material for discussion. And even though the teaching methods give little room to put the slavery past in a different perspective than the Golden Age and JP Coen, you can always talk about the statue in Hoorn with the class. Because it's not just about the exam, we're putting down global citizens.”
How do you do that in classes where current and historical topics ignite emotional discussions? “When you start teaching, your pedagogical-didactic toolbox is filled, but you have never used many instruments,” says Robert Chamalaun, chairman of the Dutch section of the Association of Teachers in Living Languages. “Once you have made progress in class for a number of years, it becomes easier.”
But in Heeswijk-Dinther it is easy for him to talk to six hundred students at the gymnasium, he also says. “We have a homogeneous audience and there is a lot to discuss here. Students are busy with their identity. They indicate with which personal pronoun they want to be addressed. Of course, sometimes a silly remark is heard and it is corrected immediately.”
The teacher sometimes stumbles into a minefield because of a few words
Is everything really negotiable? Yes, but sometimes it is useful to keep silent and use a teammate. “When it comes to clothing, I sometimes think 'you're not on the beach', but those are teenagers testing something out. I won't say anything about that myself, if necessary I can ask a female colleague. And I can well imagine that you choose eggs for your money when you are faced with thirty teenagers who have inherited a completely different world view from home than what I experience here.”
Blueprints
The teacher sometimes stumbles into a minefield because of a few words, is the experience of Gijs van Gaans. “My setup has changed over the years. I realize that my language used to be oversimplified, which can cause tension. I can rightly say 'our homosexuality did not exist in ancient times'. Then you see those faces and I have to make amends by explaining that the term homosexuality implies a degree of equality that was problematic in such relationships in ancient times. Then they will understand.”
You can end up in more places than a quiet pre-university school
Gain experience is the advice of all these teachers for colleagues who feel less confident. Spanjers: “There are no blueprints for when you can or cannot discuss the Quran in a class discussion. It has to get into your fingers.”
Support from management and peers is essential, but then it doesn't help when novice teachers get the most difficult classes, which can result if the experience is scheduled for the senior year. Van Gaans points out that the first-degree teacher training at universities contains much less work placement than the second-degree: “In the first-degree training there should be more attention for the second-degree field of work. You can end up in more places than a quiet pre-university school.”
Dealing with the large pelvis
The School & Safety Foundation is one of the providers of courses on resilience in difficult situations in primary, secondary and vocational education. Every year, 600 to 750 VO and MBO teachers follow such a one-day training, says program manager Nathalie Vriezelaar.
The participants practice with a training actor who pushes the boundaries in the 'classroom' with shocking or provocative statements. “Sending the jammer out of the classroom is the easiest, you can continue with the lesson. But what signal are you sending? Do the student and the rest of the class know why they were expelled? Discriminatory and undesirable behavior must of course be limited; because it is not allowed, and also because it can give the other students a sense of insecurity. At the same time, you can turn such a situation into a pedagogical learning moment by explaining why discrimination is not allowed. We do indeed regularly hear that this is not easy, and that teachers experience shyness in doing so. That is why you practice with these kinds of situations in this training.”
Whether it also works? Evaluations of participants are positive, says Vriezelaar, also in a publication by Movisie with the caveat that teachers were not often able to apply what they had learned due to corona restrictions. New research into the benefits of this type of training will follow in 2023.
Lees meer:
'An understanding guest lecture removes prejudices', a report about former teacher Musa van Maaren, homosexual and Muslim. The Education Magazine was allowed to watch how Van Maaren stimulates an open conversation between students about cultural, religious and sexual diversity.
