Triggering Debate: Free Speech, Safety and Students
Far from being a tool of censorship, trigger warnings give a voice to those who might ordinarily find it hard to speak.
Always have a box of tissues handy in the office.
I learned the value of this early on; on my very first day in a new job, a student came to meet with me for the first time and promptly burst into tears. In the years since then, many students have cried in my office, though usually after we've had a longer acquaintance. They've made appointments to speak to me about their essay deadlines or their general progress, but behind those academic anxieties have been more private griefs. Some of these are the painful but expected problems of young adulthood; some are deeper traumas. Students have told me about dead parents, disclosed their sexual assaults, struggled with new diagnoses of disability. In between us on the coffee table the Kleenex box has sat, waiting for the inevitable.
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