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If your ideas go unchallenged - are you learning? If you're "triggered" by history lessons - do we need to rewrite history? Is it even considered history at th

by Nadya 11y ago

If your ideas go unchallenged - are you learning? If you're "triggered" by history lessons - do we need to rewrite history? Is it even considered history at that point? Who's "safety" should we prioritize? What if two students ideas of safety conflict? How would that be resolved? Should we focus on teaching or "student safety" from ideas? Which is more important in an academic setting?

geofft 11y ago
Those would all be good questions that I would have liked the article to give some attention to. For instance, do the trigger warnings on historical content imply a way for students to avoid that content and still graduate the class? Or does it merely say what material will be covered, just as a syllabus does, so that students can be mentally prepared? Have there been conflicting ideas of safety? Concrete examples may be helpful to figure out what we're talking about. What's a good basis for determining what needs to be taught? I can imagine, for instance, a top-notch CS curriculum that involves no classes about history. (MIT's graduation requirements, for instance, don't require any history classes.) The article doesn't talk about any of this, and instead spreads FUD about the impending destruction of the academy.
- Nadya 11y ago
  >For instance, do the trigger warnings on historical content imply a way for students to avoid that content and still graduate the class? Or does it merely say what material will be covered, just as a syllabus does, so that students can be mentally prepared? Quite literally what a syllabus is for, so I imagine the former rather than the latter. If it were the latter - they already have the syllabus so what's the problem? >Have there been conflicting ideas of safety? Concrete examples may be helpful to figure out what we're talking about. I feel more safe with security/cops on campus. Certain individuals may feel less safe with security/cops on campus given recent events and media coverage over the past 2-3 years especially. Just one plausible example. Not to say that issue has come up in any notable cases - but it is one I can imagine playing out given recent events. >The article doesn't talk about any of this, and instead spreads FUD about the impending destruction of the academy. In my personal opinion, academia is already screwed. Not every field and not every campus - but an increasingly number of them. But my opinions aren't important here.
  - geofft 11y ago
    > Quite literally what a syllabus is for, so I imagine the former rather than the latter. If it were the latter - they already have the syllabus so what's the problem? A syllabus covers high-level topics/concepts, not specific types of content students would like warning about, so I can definitely see room for a policy about adding something like "involves discussion of sexual assault" next to "students will read and discuss works of fiction about life in the Southern states during Reconstruction", if you're reading The Sound and The Fury. (It's been a while since I read that book, please don't take this as a claim that the book needs a trigger warning.) If there are multiple choices of classes to fulfill a literature requirement, students could just choose to take a class without such a content warning -- they already have that choice of class. But, you're imagining and I'm imagining. It'd be nice if we had some actual journalism here to answer that question!

by Nadya 11y ago

geofft 11y ago

Those would all be good questions that I would have liked the article to give some attention to. For instance, do the trigger warnings on historical content imply a way for students to avoid that content and still graduate the class? Or does it merely say what material will be covered, just as a syllabus does, so that students can be mentally prepared? Have there been conflicting ideas of safety? Concrete examples may be helpful to figure out what we're talking about. What's a good basis for determining what needs to be taught? I can imagine, for instance, a top-notch CS curriculum that involves no classes about history. (MIT's graduation requirements, for instance, don't require any history classes.) The article doesn't talk about any of this, and instead spreads FUD about the impending destruction of the academy.

Nadya 11y ago
>For instance, do the trigger warnings on historical content imply a way for students to avoid that content and still graduate the class? Or does it merely say what material will be covered, just as a syllabus does, so that students can be mentally prepared? Quite literally what a syllabus is for, so I imagine the former rather than the latter. If it were the latter - they already have the syllabus so what's the problem? >Have there been conflicting ideas of safety? Concrete examples may be helpful to figure out what we're talking about. I feel more safe with security/cops on campus. Certain individuals may feel less safe with security/cops on campus given recent events and media coverage over the past 2-3 years especially. Just one plausible example. Not to say that issue has come up in any notable cases - but it is one I can imagine playing out given recent events. >The article doesn't talk about any of this, and instead spreads FUD about the impending destruction of the academy. In my personal opinion, academia is already screwed. Not every field and not every campus - but an increasingly number of them. But my opinions aren't important here.
- geofft 11y ago
  > Quite literally what a syllabus is for, so I imagine the former rather than the latter. If it were the latter - they already have the syllabus so what's the problem? A syllabus covers high-level topics/concepts, not specific types of content students would like warning about, so I can definitely see room for a policy about adding something like "involves discussion of sexual assault" next to "students will read and discuss works of fiction about life in the Southern states during Reconstruction", if you're reading The Sound and The Fury. (It's been a while since I read that book, please don't take this as a claim that the book needs a trigger warning.) If there are multiple choices of classes to fulfill a literature requirement, students could just choose to take a class without such a content warning -- they already have that choice of class. But, you're imagining and I'm imagining. It'd be nice if we had some actual journalism here to answer that question!