Great topic this week with teaching challenging subjects. My biggest takeaways are as follows:
- Know your school, environment and students – It will be imperative that I am aware of polices and procedures for everything involved with teaching but especially in the area of challenging subjects. I have seen many teachers be fired or at least petitions created to have the teacher fired over inappropriate lessons, activities, and speech when it come to topics that can easily offend someone. It will be important to learn the background of each of my students so I can be sensitive to their feelings and cultures.
- It’s always nice to know that your not the only one with hesitations about difficult topics. While I knew already that I wouldn’t be the only one who has reservations, it was get to see what reservations my peers have as well. Some are the same and some are different. I think discussing some of them together in our small groups helped many of us think of these topics in different ways which helps.
- Regardless of any best practices sheets or information I can read about to prepare for such difficult topics, it all comes down to speaking the truth!! The truth will set you free!!
One thing that wasn’t discussed as I look back on the agenda was fake news. I wonder how one should go about addressing fake news? My guess would be seek out the truth by finding multiple, reliable sources.