Bitesize Research: Facilitating Conversations About World Events

By Jaya Carrier

I hope you’re all having a good first week back! Lots of amazing work has taken place in PD lessons this year. One of things I know tutors, YCs and the pastoral team work really hard to do is manage and facilitate challenging conversations about difficult or disturbing world events. As such, I was interested to come upon this Edutopia article that gives some guidance about these kinds of conversations. 

Objectives: To suggest some ideas about facilitating and managing conversations about disturbing news stories or world events. 

Summary: 

• The author gives some recommendations about how to ensure these conversations can be supportive and well managed. She recommends that in the first instance, educators aim to:

• Developing self awareness: Understanding your own bias and lens on the event as an educator

• Know your students: Understanding the cultures, backgrounds and experiences of students before entering into a conversation

• Being present and available: Making it known to students that they can talk to you when they need to

• Invite students to share their thoughts, feelings and reactions: This can help build connection, which in the first instance can be more important than providing a detailed analysis of what has happened and why.

• Normalise student feelings: Let students know that worry, fear and anger are normal reactions to upsetting situations.

• Listen and paraphrase: Seek to listen and paraphrase, which can help with students feeling that they are not being judged

• The author also recommends after the initial shock that educators provide accurate information, enable students to ‘zoom out’ so that they don’t see events in isolation and to promote loving action including social justice campaigns. 

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflections arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

• What kinds of conversations have I had about difficult and upsetting events with students before? How did it go?

• How can I facilitate these kinds of conversations in future?

• What support do I need to have these kinds of conversations effectively?

If you’re interested in being coached through your biases or want to talk further about this more generally, please do get in touch - I’d love to hear from you!