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fortheloveofbeetsDonna Zuckerberg
6/27/16 3:32pm
This is wonderful, thank you for sharing. So much of the discussion about this is so alarmist and polarizing. Just a couple thoughts:

Providing trigger warnings (or, my preferred term, content warnings) isn’t “coddling” any more than it would be coddling a wheelchair-bound student to have a ramp so they can enter the classroom.

1) I love the idea of calling them “content warnings,” if for no other reason than the fact that “trigger warnings” have been so hopelessly sensationalized. Plus, it’s a little more of an intuitive label.

2) “Wheelchair-bound,” as I understand, is not really the preferred phrasing, since it implies that using a wheelchair is a sort of prison, rather than a tool. I believe “student who uses a wheelchair” is a good alternative.
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  chemiclordfortheloveofbeets
  6/27/16 3:40pm
  The problem is that it really doesn’t matter what you call it. The stigma will follow the term, kinda like the same way “Special Education” became “Exceptional Education” which became “Alternative Education”, and yet every “normal” kid magically seemed to know who the “slow kids” were and still abused them verbally and physically.
  
  Anyone who mocked “trigger warnings” isn’t going to change their tune if we start calling them something else.
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  omnichadfortheloveofbeets
  6/27/16 3:40pm
  I specifically like the idea that it’s called out as being like a disability. Clearly, PTSD is not the normal human state of mind, and this sort of thing is more like an illness. That said, with the number of potential triggers being staggering, it really should be on the students to anonymously provide this information to the teacher - just like you would need for any accessibility concern, except with anonymity as an added protection for the student.
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fortheloveofbeetsDonna Zuckerberg
6/27/16 3:45pm
You likely have no idea that contingent faculty tend to be women, while tenured positions tend to be men, or that academia has a way of turning pregnancy into a career-ending disability, of forcing women into taking on more service-related duties, of punishing them for speaking their minds. You are likely unaware that student evaluations are heavily biased against women, as well as against people of color, and old people, and unattractive people, too.

There’s also the fact that there’s basically no correlation between good evaluations and having actually learned a lot in the class. That is, a professor who didn’t teach their students shit all but were entertaining may well get better evaluations that a professor who was challenging and made their students really grow.

The weight that schools put on evaluations is really misplaced. They’re important, I think, for seeing consistent complaints about a professor being genuinely unfair or biased (and also useful for professors themselves to get some honest feedback). But basing tenure and such on evaluations is a super dumb idea. It’s part of the pattern of schools operating more like businesses than educational institutions, and treating students with a customer-is-always-right mentality. That’s a toxic attitude when you’re trying to get those students to pull their heads out of their asses and push themselves to really learn.
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  Das, evil rabbit and obnoxious (half)germanfortheloveofbeets
  6/27/16 3:50pm
  I saw someone I went to high school with complaining on FB once because a professor wouldn’t give him the answers to the homework. He said he should have them since he was “a paying customer who wants good grades.” It’s ridiculous.
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  fortheloveofbeetsDas, evil rabbit and obnoxious (half)german
  6/27/16 4:00pm
  Holy shit.
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Adrastra predicts "Low Key" title for Taylor's new albumDonna Zuckerberg
6/27/16 3:51pm
I find that trigger warnings, or as you call them, content warnings, are incredibly degree-specific in their abundance. For example: in film studies classes, where especially graphic scenes are rare in our class’s required viewing, are made every time it is appropriate. On the other hand, in art history classes, there are no warnings whatsoever, although the amount of content that might require them is far greater. Typically the content is discussed in both scenarios, as it’s often unavoidable (especially in art history, where you can’t not talk about whatever the actual visual respresentation is). While I support the broad idea of trigger warnings, I am very curious as to where the line gets drawn not for a surprise-effect, but rather a feeling of ‘you should expect this by now, and if you can’t handle it, you might think about switching your area of study’.
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  moopidooAdrastra predicts "Low Key" title for Taylor's new album
  6/27/16 4:19pm
  This is the problem with trigger warnings. What is their function? On the internet, they’re meant to be something that allows people who don’t want to view a certain kind of content to avoid that content. This is fine, since the internet isn’t required reading.
  
  In an academic setting, you have to read things that fundamentally upset you. I guess I can see warning students on a syllabus to give them a chance to avoid the class, or perhaps giving students in class the realization that they might want to prepare themselves, but academic work isn’t optional. But those are two very different definitions of “trigger warning.”
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  Adrastra predicts "Low Key" title for Taylor's new albummoopidoo
  6/27/16 4:26pm
  Exactly. As far as my anecdotal experience, students just want the latter, but it seems many professors believe that students expect the former.
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booksaregreatDonna Zuckerberg
6/27/16 4:00pm
I am currently a young, female adjunct at a large (and well ranked) state university and I have several responses. I think we need to start a discussion between elementary, high school and universities because so many of the problems I see, stem from systemic logic that creates apathy from an early age.

For me, and most of my colleagues, the problem generally is not one or two apathetic students, but rather 90% apathetic students. I try extremely hard to allow students to foster their own interests while still engaging with social justice and the learning objectives. I modify assignment topics/make them very flexible so that students have the maximum amount of incentive to get excited about doing work. However, the problem is way beyond just the corporatization of universities; the problem lies in the emphasis on efficiency and technique that is fostered from pre-school on. These students have been taught that university is now expected and look at university as a stepping stone, or another item to check off their list. Learning should never be a “to-do” item on a list. This automatically fosters a sense of commodification and limits learning to a quantifiable thing. Obviously, this is linked to mass testing and other types of regulatory activities that students encounter throughout their life.

This type of systematic blank marketing of education places emphasis on grades. I give students what they deserve. C is average, B is above average and A is exceptional, or at least this is supposed to be the grading scale. I’ve had students and their parents threaten me and my life over grades. I’ve been told by higher administration that it isn’t worth the risk and to give the student what they want. It’s weird to decide if my personal safety or doing the right thing is worth more, and to have the university force me to make that choice. It also emphasizes that adjuncts are little more than a few dollar signs that can be added or removed with little consequence.

This attitude comes from the fact that their parents/teachers/elders/people in positions of power appear to have done everything for them their whole lives, and these students lack initiative. I don’t see this as the student’s fault or their previous teachers or parents. We live in a system that values efficiency and often doesn’t leave other choices. What happens when a school doesn’t have the funding and won’t support a student re-taking grade 8, and thus passes them to grade 9? Schools and parents can fight, but the logic of the system is often too great and so efficiency comes to replace competency. Also as parents we are inundated with ads, and television morning segments and all kinds of information that tells us to support our children in these specific ways. It’s really no one specific that is at fault. More that we allow the neoliberal, global market to dictate our actions, which in turn subverts the power and authority of centralized government. Therefore, government and centralized power reacts by creating standards and regulations which attempt to galvanize its position. It’s a paradox I don’t have an answer to.

The university reinforces all this by dropping standards of admission, as most universities see more students as more $$$, thus admitting more students, many of whom struggle with expectations once they arrive. Most of my third and fourth year students still expect a ready-made formula for writing a critical analysis essay and a survey of my freshman said that over 95% of them only had written personal essays and that they’d all received As on them in highschool, without comments. I get questions in an email, such as “how do I cite a book?” even after refreshing this in-class, posting a guide on the class site and in general hinting to use Google for basic questions. When I didn’t respond to this email immediately (read: 3 hours), the student’s parents called my supervisor.

The point of all of this is to say that from my own experiences and from other colleagues, we know the students are apathetic, not out of their own doing, but because they have been conditioned that way, as well as all those around them. And we are really, really tired. Nothing is more disappointing than spending 50+ hours a week (when you are only paid for 30) on comments, coming up with inventive ways of teaching etc to receive a comment card with comments such as “has vocal fry,” “looks too young to be a professor,” and even “has frizzy hair” on my evaluations. This is what determines my livelihood: vocal fry. And it is what shows the true problems; namely that apathy distracts from real learning, real questioning and real confrontation of problems. Apathy is merely a symptom of larger problems and after 5 years of teaching, I’m still as confused and even more exhausted/distraught over how to confront this.
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  badmuthabooksaregreat
  6/27/16 5:20pm
  Good lord. That sounds horrible.
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  The Other Theronbooksaregreat
  6/27/16 5:36pm
  Just got an e-mail from a student who wanted me to explain why she got a 96 instead of a 100 on a writing assignment. I really want to write back and say, “Spend a couple more decades reading everything you can, and writing every time you get a chance. Then you’ll know.” Seriously, you’re almost certain to get an “A” in this class — calm down.
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Marzipan in your Pie PlateDonna Zuckerberg
6/27/16 3:43pm
As a former adjunct professor, I rolled my eyes pretty hard the first time I heard about the stories about students demanding trigger warnings to protect their fragile feelings.

But then I realized that I had mostly been doing this all along. I live in a religious conservative area, and I let the students know beforehand if there might be something offensive in the course material. And after being caught off-guard by how upset some students were after reading a particularly violent short story, I started warning students about that as well.

I think what is important here is that no one is asking professors to change their content (or at least few are, and we should be opposed to that), but they are mostly just asking professors to let students know beforehand about sensitive content. And I don’t think it’s that the students do not want to participate in the class, they just don’t want to be caught off guard, possibly causing a panic attack while trying to do homework. A reasonable request, I think.
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  Computer2Marzipan in your Pie Plate
  6/27/16 3:56pm
  I have been out of university for a while (and my grad degree was science-based, so nothing I can imagine being triggering there). So, my only observation of this discussion has been on the internet. As an outsider, my only concern is that the list of potential triggers seems to grow and grow, and “triggering” has seemed to expand from actual PTSD to feeling uncomfortable. I think it is great to make a general warning if a book has a violent rape scene, or lynching. But the broader the target areas get, and the broader the potentially “triggered” audience is, the more it seems like these works could be seen as “bad” as opposed to being a simple heads up about traumatic content.
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  Crispin WaughMarzipan in your Pie Plate
  6/27/16 3:58pm
  And I don’t think it’s that the students do not want to participate in the class, they just don’t want to be caught off guard, possibly causing a panic attack while trying to do homework. A reasonable request, I think.
  
  I think this hits the nail on the head. As an educator, if your students are telling you a way that you can help them be engaged with the material and participate, shouldn’t you want to listen to them? How often are you lucky enough to have your students lay out for you how to be a better educate them? Sounds like a dream to me.
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Das, evil rabbit and obnoxious (half)germanDonna Zuckerberg
6/27/16 3:47pm
Sometimes, on the other hand, an activist student can successfully engage the rest of the class in a lively and productive discussion—a situation that the instructor can facilitate, and in response to which the instructor will be profoundly grateful.

It’s possible and can be very enlightening when done well, however I think this also requires a maturity and level of self-reflection that many college students, and people in general, simply don’t have.

Others can be “openly hostile to discussions of social justice within the classroom” because one student often hijacks what ought to be a discussion and turns it into a lecture. I think that discussions of sensitive topics (when present students are even just a little bit interested) are often more fruitful without the presence of an “activist” student.
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  dcgirl13Das, evil rabbit and obnoxious (half)german
  6/27/16 4:27pm
  I’m remembering a classmate who went on a very long “white people can’t have ethnic heritage” tirade and just wouldn’t accept that some white people do have a connection to a specific ethnic group. And a kind of chicken professor that just let her berate us.
  
  After awhile you just nod and smile and don’t disagree.
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  taylorDas, evil rabbit and obnoxious (half)german
  6/27/16 4:41pm
  On the other hand, I was once in a class where a black girl asked a white guy to please stop saying the n word in class, particularly because it had nothing to do with the discussion. He then spent 45 minutes giving his life story and why he should be able to say anything he wants to say ever.
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Memorykid-9Donna Zuckerberg
6/27/16 4:03pm
In the opening scene of Night of the Super-Woke Student Body

Can we cease saying “woke” when we mean “socially conscious”? I’m not sure when exactly this term saw unnatural breach-birth; but I cannot conceal my annoyance at how fucking stupid it sounds. Why do the journalists on this blog perpetuate it?

I was just as baffled as a teen when people started saying “my bad” instead of “sorry!”.

Please, folks. Please.
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  badmuthaMemorykid-9
  6/27/16 5:25pm
  Oh thank you, thank you! I hate “woke bae.”
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  law&fastfoodorderMemorykid-9
  6/27/16 5:36pm
  My reaction each time I read it on here is “Stop trying to make Fetch happen”
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Sonic Reducer 151Donna Zuckerberg
6/27/16 3:34pm
It should but doesn’t always go without saying that, if you haven’t read something, you have no right to an opinion on its appropriateness for the classroom, particularly on the internet, where there is already so much noise

Aw hell no. The fundamental right to be outraged on the internet by something I don’t understand and haven’t bothered to read is the hill I will die on.
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jccalhounDonna Zuckerberg
6/27/16 4:01pm
I’m an adjunct at a midwestern university. many of my friends are adjunct or tenure track folks at universities across the USA. We are all in the Humanities and many of us regularly teach about race, gender, sex, and class. None of us have encountered any issues with students needing to be coddled and not wanting to talk about sensitive topics (sometimes they don’t want to talk at all but that’s another story!)

Maybe the problem isn’t the coddled oversensitive students but people on the internet looking for a reason to complain about “kids these days” and/or some faculty members who are actually not very nice people?
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  The Other Theronjccalhoun
  6/27/16 5:37pm
  I think at least some of it is elite schools vs. everywhere else. My students are mostly working and lower-middle class. I don’t have any of these problems.
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  MingSchwaziaThe Other Theron
  6/27/16 7:44pm
  Ditto. I have mostly working class and pretty fucking poor students, and I haven’t gotten any of that either.
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Yet Another Burner, Don't Mind MeDonna Zuckerberg
6/27/16 4:51pm
a) I wouldn’t conflate all instances of this with physical, mental or cognitive disabilities. There’s a difference between someone with clinically diagnosed disabilities, including PTSD, and someone who is simply sensitive by nature. Treating trigger warnings as being as necessary as a ramp or curb cut for a person using a wheelchair, is too broad. Trigger warning discussions happen as often or more often from people’s personalities and political views, than they do from a medically diagnosed issue (yes, anecdotally, no I don’t have data either way).

b) It would be more efficient for trigger warnings to be delivered by the school, as school policy, as part of the official material for the individual courses, a particular degree program, or general admission to the school overall. Make the school administration the focus for setting policy consistently and correctly, not leaving it up to fights with individual professors and/or their TAs.

c) Some of the debate over what’s acceptable material, and a professor putting too much / too little political or cultural sensitivity in it, is just part of a liberal arts education. People need room to find their voices, to fight for something, to be loudly wrong or right, to say and write things they will cringe about years later, and more. You haven’t gotten a true liberal arts education if you haven’t occupied a campus building in the name of some cause or other, doubly so if you’re protesting a school policy. Hell, the liberal arts college I went to seemed to have one of these every year to year and a half, it was practically a rite of passage. So it’s wrong-headed, to me, to try to work too hard to filter all of this out or find an answer to this culture war. It’s part of the growing up that kids do there. They’re in a high-school like environment but are now more likely to be living on their own and controlling their own schedule and interests for the first time.
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  pileofashesYet Another Burner, Don't Mind Me
  6/27/16 8:36pm
  I don’t really understand your point A. If a bunch of able-bodied people walk up a wheelchair ramp, does that somehow invalidate the necessity of wheelchair ramps? I’m sure there are people who ask for trigger warnings who don’t need them, or don’t need them as intensely as someone with PTSD does, but that doesn’t make them any less of an accessibility issue.
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  Marx and SparksYet Another Burner, Don't Mind Me
  6/28/16 1:00am
  The fact that you think an entire degree program could/should be where trigger warnings happen tells me you don’t understand the issue. The issue is that, as a rape survivor, I need to steel myself before engaging with graphic depictions of sexual assault. Being told it might come up in a four year program is in no way helpful. Being told that the novel I’m reading over the next two weeks depicts graphic sexual assault lets me figure out what I need to be able to engage with it (read it at home? schedule a therapy session? extra self-care? absent myself from the day we discuss it in class and make it up with the professor’s permission?).
  
  I think a real issue with this whole debate is that people arguing for trigger warnings are talking about complex physiological responses that trauma survivors have little-to-no control over, while naysayers think it’s “anything that makes people uncomfortable.”
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