Navigating Challenging Conversations

After laying the groundwork by building trust and setting norms, what can we do on the day of a challenging conversation to ensure the discussion serves our course’s learning goals? 

• Center classroom norms: At the beginning of class, remind students of the day’s goals and the classroom norms that you all will try to put into practice. These reminders can set the tone for the class and also offer an anchor point to return to if the conversation becomes heated.
• Normalize discomfort. If the atmosphere in class feels charged (or before you approach a topic that might make things tense), it can be helpful to remind students that discomfort is a normal and valuable part of the process of learning, and that it can be especially uncomfortable to disagree with each other and to engage with ideas that we find troubling. Part of the reason we shy away from challenging conversations is that they are hard.
  • It’s important for students to know that this sense of discomfort is entirely normal and not indicative of a problem. 
• Stick to the course material. The classroom is a unique space, defined by academic values and thus distinct and separate from the public square. As a result, we don’t have to (nor should we try to) provide a venue to discuss any and every issue of the day. Instead, we should ensure that fear of controversy or disagreement doesn’t impede our ability to teach, or students’ ability to learn, the material we’ve included in our courses.
  • Attempting to facilitate wide-ranging discussions of controversial topics unrelated to a given class can undercut our ability to engage with the tough topics that are integral to our course.
• Question (premature) consensus and suggest alternate ways to approach a topic or to address a problem.You can also solicit alternative viewpoints with questions like “what other approaches [to question X] are there?” or “can anyone articulate another perspective?”
• Be wary of the “most articulate advocate” or the “loudest voice” problem. Just because one student feels strongly that a topic should or shouldn’t be discussed, or that their way of addressing a problem is the only one a reasonable person would consider, doesn’t mean that everyone shares this person’s views. Don’t assume that silence implies the absence of dissenting voices or that you should follow the lead of a vocal student. You might have to be the one who offers a different approach, particularly if you feel that students are missing the opportunity to question their beliefs or the prevailing classroom consensus.
• Use anonymous polling: Anonymous polling can offer a way to show students the range of views in the classroom - which itself might not encompass all possible perspectives, although is often more wide-ranging than what is openly expressed in class.
• Harness meta-cognition and self-reflection. When things get hot, it can be difficult for students (and instructors) to regain a sense of perspective. Asking questions that prompt self-reflection can help students consider the elements of open and rigorous discussion that they want to put into practice. Questions might include: What helped you discuss contentious topics before? What did you find especially difficult? In the aftermath of previous discussions, was there anything that you wish you would have done differently?