Teaching painful things in an unjust world

This is a guest post by Audrey Yap, Department of Philosophy, University of Victoria, on how, and whether to incorporate Covid-19 material in their classes. 

At this particular time, when many course instructors are transitioning, or preparing to transition, to different kinds of instruction amid a global pandemic, many of us will be struck by the relevance of much material with which we professionally engage. Many instructors are considering the extent to which they want to either include material relevant to COVID-19 in their classes, or acknowledge the extent to which the material they are already covering has implications for our thinking about the current situation. With respect to the former question, Sean Valles (Michigan State), who works on philosophy and public health, has written an extremely helpful Facebook post, and has a relevant interview on the Sci Phi podcast. But chances are that even those who are not explicitly including content on public health and pandemics might find that their philosophy of science, political philosophy, or value theory courses are occasionally hitting a bit too close to home.

But this situation is not all that new, particularly for many philosophers who work on conditions of oppression. Many such academics, including (but certainly not restricted to) feminist philosophers, philosophers of race, philosophers of disability, and philosophers working on decolonization, have already spent years talking to students about material that is both painful and directly connected to the circumstances of their lives. For example, when we teach material on gendered violence to our undergraduate classes, it is almost certain that we are speaking to an audience that contains victims of gendered violence, and perhaps some perpetrators of such violence as well.  In that spirit, this post intends to offer some considerations that have been helpful for me and some other feminist philosophers when we teach potentially painful material. Since gendered violence is one of my research areas, I thought I would share some things that I try to keep in mind when I discuss it in the classroom.

1. Your students will all have been impacted in different ways. You will probably not be able to anticipate all of those ways. Try to avoid making anyone, or any group, a straightforward villain. Suppose, and ask students to suppose, that the group contains people who have been wronged and who have also done wrong. Some of those who have wronged others may even come to that realization in the course of your discussions. We might also explicitly acknowledge that neither category forms a homogenous group, and that there are frequently people who fall into both categories.
2. Explicitly set up group practices for correcting others if they say something problematic, or for disagreeing with others on a delicate issue. Make it clear that you are among the people who can be corrected or disagreed with. Some instructors express this in terms of being patient with each other and giving ourselves a chance to revise and rethink our own biases, views, and preconceptions. This might be included on your syllabus, for instance. Sometimes I tell students that if I use an inappropriate term or frame an issue in a way that they find problematic, I would greatly appreciate it if they would let me know what a better term or framing would be - either in person or over email later. Students have done this for me, and I have found it extremely helpful.
3. Be careful with unmoderated discussion, like small group discussions. What seems like an abstract scenario to one person might well be another person’s lived experience. Even well-intentioned philosophical speculation about that scenario can be experienced as profoundly harmful. Consider, for instance, what some disabled philosophers have said about their experience in philosophy courses where the subject of disability comes up. So you’ll need a good sense of your group’s discussion skills, including their shared vocabulary. And probably some very clear intended outcomes as well for the discussions.
4. Be careful as well with assignment structures. For some people, philosophical writing about things that have been both painful and personal can feel therapeutic, or at least neutral. For others, it might be traumatic. Try to set up evaluation practices that are at least flexible enough not to force students to write on some of these topics. If you force them to do this, you might be grading not only their philosophical skills, but also their ability to compartmentalize trauma, or even to perform it in a philosophical context. You should also think about who will have to grade these assignments. Are you prepared to take this on? Are your TAs? This is not just for the sake of the people whose work is being graded, but for those who have to teach and evaluate it. In my own experience, reading student work that engages with this kind of difficult material is both rewarding and exhausting. This leads to the final point.
5. You’re in the world too. None of us are disembodied sources of knowledge, and talking about painful and difficult material is maybe a time when you need to be a human with your students instead of just their professor. Part of this means acknowledging your own social location, and being honest that this will affect all kinds of things in ways that you might not be able to anticipate. Part of this means acknowledging that you have your own emotional life and relationship to the issues at hand. I have cried in seminars and when giving talks. That’s just part of who I am in general – I have no poker face. At no point did I feel like this undermined me as a knower; sometimes students told me they appreciated the implicit permission to have and show feelings about the subject. But I also teach material related to oppressions I do not face, and need to be honest about the fact that I am not negatively impacted by such things in the ways that some of my students are. Regardless, though, of the ways in which you are positioned, if you expect students to trust you, even in their positions of vulnerability, you need to extend that trust to them as well. If you can’t do that, it’s ok – but then try not to place emotional demands on others that you aren’t also prepared to meet.

I don’t pretend that these strategies mitigate every possible harm that might take place in my classrooms. Or that this list is exhaustive, or will work for everyone in every classroom. But if you are someone considering what to do when the topic of COVID-19 comes up in your class, please note that lots of us have already been teaching material for some time that we know is directly relevant to some of our students’ extremely difficult life experiences. 

As we note the sheer number of philosophical issues to which a global pandemic has relevance, it is worth remembering that crises such as these magnify inequalities and stresses in our systems. The philosophical issues that we thought we had been teaching dispassionately and neutrally this whole time might have had more personal relevance for some of our students than previously realized.

Comments

[Gisele]

Hi Audrey
Thanks for writing this!
I would like to ask your permission to publish a translation of your post on the website of the Rede Brasileira de Mulheres na Filosofia (Brazilian Network of Women Philosophers): https://www.filosofas.org/noticias
I am sure your words will be a great inspiration across my country.
Best,
G.