Distressed chair among other chairs graphic. Crystal Tam // Publicity Center
Content warning: This story examines class discussions on traumatic material.
By PJ Heusted
There will likely come a point in every college student’s career when they are asked to participate in a class discussion that contains harmful or triggering material. Whether it is about racism, abuse, violence, mental illness, sexual assault or something else that troubles you, these topics find themselves in many classrooms around Western’s campus.
Many of these difficult topics create important and informative discussion that allows students to share bits of their experiences and inform others about how to handle upsetting material.
The issue that I have with using these sensitive topics as a basis for discussion is that while it may be a case study for some students, there are others that carry these traumas with them every day. It isn’t just an insightful source of conversation or intellectual exercise, but something that weighs on day-to-day life and can cause more harm than good for students.
While there have not been many instances where I have been personally affected by discussions about my own trauma, in my two years at Western there have been instances when a professor steered discussion towards what I would refer to as triggering material. I hold no resentment for the professors nor the students in the class, but these moments force me to think about how we can do better to help avoid pushing students into uncomfortable, harmful and potentially unsafe conversations.
There are two instances specifically in which I found myself sitting in a classroom with a discussion about sexual assault and rape on college campuses where the only thoughts in my head were not, “wow, this conversation is insightful and important,” but instead cycled between “I need to leave immediately” and panic-driven flashbacks.
In both of these discussions, the professor would start by letting the class know that we were going to be discussing potentially triggering content about sexual violence and that if any students felt uncomfortable that they could stand up, walk to the front of the class and leave.
I was given the choice to either sit through the discussion and face whatever consequences would come from an hour long discussion about trauma that affected me or stand up and effectively out myself to the strangers in the class. Neither of these feel like ideal options.
In the first of these class discussions, I chose the latter. I sat in the back of the class and had to quickly put away all of my things, walk past several rows of desks and leave the classroom. I distinctly remember feeling like every single noise or movement that I was making brought one more set of eyes on me. Eyes that I was convinced would be judging me, making assumptions and likely thinking the worst of me. I walked out the classroom as fast as I could without bumping into students or desks and proceeded to hide in the basement bathroom in the Humanities building until I calmed myself down and could walk back to my apartment.
The fact that this happened over a year ago and I still remember it in vivid detail is upsetting. What was supposed to be a way for me to avoid harmful discussion and protect myself against something that I knew would be damaging to my mental health still stands out as a mentally tense and difficult event.
In the second of the class discussions I must have been feeling particularly brave. I thought that the specifics of the discussion would be far enough removed from myself that it would be alright and I would be able to handle it. In short, I was incredibly wrong and spent the duration of the discussion drawing circles in my notes and trying to not cry while I could feel my brain starting to shut down. I remember continuously weighing the pros and cons of leaving mid-discussion and whether or not it was worth causing a scene, but my anxiety kept me seated.
This is my issue with the “you can leave the room if the discussion is too much to handle” approach to protecting students. It places the work on the survivor instead of proactively working to help them.
I think that the standard for addressing these discussions and determining student participation in them should be to just make attendance voluntary. Either tell students in the prior class or send an email to inform them of the topics being discussed and give them the power to sit it out. In classes where attendance is mandatory and affects a student’s final grade, one may feel pressured to attend to help their grade, despite it not being safe for them. Give them the opportunity to sit that class out without having to announce to the entire class that they aren’t comfortable in the room.
Don’t put students on the spot. Don’t force them to sit through harmful discussion. Don’t do more harm than good.