Having "The Talk"

Yesterday, my methods class talked about how to teach difficult texts to students. It really got me thinking about how many potential landmines there are in an English classroom. Students are old enough to engage with challenging material - everything from bad language and drugs to rape and racism - but they are not all at the same maturity level. They also have different life experiences, so what might be acceptable for one student might feel very upsetting for others.


When I was a kid, my parents let me read pretty much anything. But movies and tv were another matter. It wasn't such a big deal, because there were very few audio-visual materials used in school. We had Carmen Sandiego and the Oregon Trail on the computer, the occasional boring educational filmstrip, and special movies on VHS tape (Where the Red Fern Grows, the Velveteen Rabbit, and on one memorable occasion the Princess Bride - although we had to turn down the sound when Fred Savage said, "Jesus, Grandpa!" and when Mandy Patinkin said, "I want my father back, you son of a bitch!")


I knew other kids watched In Living Color and saw R-rated movies. But the first time I saw an R-rated movie was at summer camp when I was a counselor-in-training and they let the staff watch The Lost Boys. I wasn't brave enough to admit I'd never seen anything scarier than The Wizard of Oz (admit it; Margaret Hamilton is terrifying on that broom).


But these days, there's a lot more multi-media in the classroom. There're also a lot more options when it comes to reading materials (graphic novels, contemporary YA lit, etc).


And at the same time, texts that we wouldn't have thought twice about teaching in the 80's and 90's are attracting greater scrutiny as we acknowledge their racist, sexist, and violent content.


So, what are teachers supposed to do? One thing we can do is be thoughtful about the texts we include in our classroom - whether they are part of the canon, contemporary pieces, or multi-media. We don't have to shy away from difficult topics. But we do have to ensure that those texts are embedded in a curriculum that encompasses more than just a few difficult topics.


In other words, English class is not a place to discuss difficult topics out of context. We should not offer our students unsolicited opinions or advice, and we should not simply raise edgy topics for the sake of being provocative. There is a big difference between discussing a rape that takes place in the context of a story, and simply talking about rape.


Along those same lines, I think there is a difference between encountering tough topics in print and encountering them on film or other forms of multi-media. This might be a holdover from how I was raised, but I think imagining something is different than seeing it or hearing it.