Tuesday, July 23, 2019



Trigger warnings do more harm than good

A growing body of evidence says they are damaging to education and mental health.

The rise of trigger warnings was one of the first signs that things were going awry on university campuses in recent years. These warnings – placed on texts or materials deemed to be potentially upsetting to students, particularly those who have suffered some kind of trauma – were introduced with the best of intentions. But a growing body of evidence suggests they are counterproductive and bad for intellectual life.

In their Atlantic cover story in September 2015, constitutional lawyer Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explained that trigger warnings are part of the growing tendency of students to demand censorship of words, ideas and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offence.

Lukianoff and Haidt warned that trigger warnings could ‘foster unhealthy mental habits’ in students by creating the impression that the discussion of certain topics is dangerous. They also explained that according to evidence-based cognitive behavioural therapy, trauma sufferers should be carefully exposed to things that discomfort them, rather than discouraged from engaging with them.

Supporters of trigger warnings argue that they help students struggling with mental-health problems, such as PTSD, and prepare them to engage with, or choose to disengage from, challenging content. The University of Michigan, for example, claims trigger warnings provide the ‘forewarning necessary’ for students to make use of strategies to cope with challenging content.

In practice, many of the uses of trigger warnings have been laughable. At Rutgers University, students called for trigger warnings on Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, to warn about the book’s ‘examination of suicidal tendencies’. At Columbia University, students called for Ovid’s Metamorphoses to have a trigger warning for ‘sexual assault’. At Cambridge University, trigger warnings have been used for Shakespeare. At La Trobe University in Australia, a students’ union policy motion decreed that trigger warnings should be used for body-image issues, eye contact, food and insects.

Several years have passed since these original debates first raged and, in the finest of academic tradition, trigger warnings have been put to rigorous testing. The findings are damning. Trigger warnings are not just useless — they are actively harmful.

Last year, Harvard University’s Benjamin Bellet, Payton Jones and Richard McNally published the findings of their first experiment on trigger warnings. From a randomly selected sample, they presented 133 participants with a trigger warning and 137 participants with no trigger warning prior to reading literary passages with potentially disturbing content. They found from a follow-up survey that those who received trigger warnings had an increased perception of ‘emotional vulnerability to trauma’.

A follow-up study released in preprint this month by the same researchers sought to test how people with mental-health issues react to trigger warnings. They used the same method as the previous study, but in this case for 451 trauma survivors. To begin with, they found no evidence that trigger warnings helped PTSD survivors, ‘even when survivors’ trauma matched the passages’ content’. They did find, however, that ‘trigger warnings counter-therapeutically reinforce survivors’ view of their trauma as central to their identity’. They conclude that ‘because trigger warnings are consistently unhelpful, there is no evidence-based reason to use them’.

In another study, academics Mevagh Sanson, Deryn Strange and Maryanne Garry undertook six experiments online and with college students and internet users in which participants were exposed to negative materials with and without warnings. They found, both among those who do and those who do not have a history of trauma that ‘trigger warnings had trivial effects’. Another study has similarly found that trigger warnings neither encourage negative reactions nor mitigate negative reactions.

In response to this new evidence, trigger-warning proponent and Slate writer Shannon Palus has now come out against trigger warnings. Sadly, however, trigger warnings became ingrained in many contexts long ago.

Putting aside the negative impact on mental health, trigger warnings have other pernicious consequences, particularly for intellectual freedom. Trigger warnings tell students how they are supposed to respond to certain material in advance, and they encourage disengagement from challenging material – which is the entire purpose of higher education. They fit into the broader ‘safety culture’ on campus, in which demands for censorship are framed around the emotional impact of hearing a disagreeable idea.

Proponents of trigger warnings typically claim that they in fact encourage engagement with difficult material, albeit in a more careful fashion. But not only can trigger warnings make students wary of engaging with certain subjects, they can also make academics wary of teaching certain subjects. Many academics have responded to calls for trigger warnings by simply avoiding teaching challenging content altogether. This undermines the whole purpose of universities.

Universities that continue to encourage the use of trigger warnings in the face of growing evidence about the damage they do are putting superstition before fact – and hurting their students and reputations in the process. Trigger warnings should be thrown into the dustbin of history.

SOURCE
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/07/19/trigger-warnings-do-more-harm-than-good/





Today’s Students Have Turned Their Backs on Civil Discourse

More than a half-century ago, Coretta Scott King addressed Harvard University students in the wake of the assassination of her husband, Martin Luther King Jr.

She said:

“Today’s student is a serious-minded, independent-thinking individual who seeks to analyze and understand the problems of our society, and find solutions to these problems, which are in keeping with the highest traditions and values of our democratic system.”

Students, according to King, were the future of a more thoughtful and equal society, and one of the most important tools at their disposal was the freedom of speech.

Yet, today it seems students have changed.

Finding solutions to the problems of society remains a dominant feature of modern universities, but many students have rejected the former spirit that valued solutions, as King noted, “in keeping with the highest traditions and values of our democratic system.”

In fact, instead of engaging in civil dialogue, students now express outrage at controversial speakers and demand the resignation of faculty members who refuse to conform to progressive creeds or do not immediately condone students’ threatening or pernicious actions.

Worse, often they do this with campus administrators in tow.

For instance, a left-leaning professor, Bret Weinstein, at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, who objected to reverse segregation on campus (specifically, a day when white students and faculty were to remain off campus), was hunted by students in 2017 because of his objection.

Campus security, aware of the situation, recommended that he remain off campus, since they could not protect him as the college president had ordered security to “stand down.”

In 2017, Stanley Kurtz, writing at National Review, documented dozens of campus shout-downs across the nation. The presidents of Virginia Tech and the University of Oregon were among those shouted down.

After police removed protesters interrupting Texas state Rep. Briscoe Cain’s speech at Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University, the university president immediately ended the event. He claimed that scheduling procedures weren’t followed, even though the dean of the law school had approved the event.

Some argue that such extreme situations result from a very small, but vocal, group of college students. Most students, instead, choose to remain silent, rather than risk their friendships and social capital—afraid they might appear “unwoke.”

The trend of student silence is especially evident from the guarded support Sahil Handa received after publicly critiquing the political tribalization among his fellow Harvard students.

Handa wrote that he “received well over a hundred notes from students thanking [him] for writing the article.”

But, he added, “not a single one was shared in public.”

The poignancy of the political atmosphere on college campuses is emphasized by a 2019 Knight Foundation study. It found that “[m]ore than two-thirds (68%) of college students say their campus climate precludes students from expressing their true opinions because their classmates might find it offensive.”

At the same time, the study found that more than half of students thought that “shouting down speakers or trying to prevent them from talking” was either “always” or “sometimes” appropriate.

Although most students condemned violence as a means to stop a speech or rally, 16% of respondents thought violent actions were acceptable either “always” or “sometimes.”

This general opposition to the free exchange of ideas is fundamentally opposed to an environment of open inquiry. Yale University’s Woodward Report outlines the university’s purpose as “[t]o discover and disseminate knowledge by means of research and teaching. To fulfill this function, a free interchange of ideas is necessary … .”

Accordingly, “the university must do everything possible to ensure within it the fullest degree of intellectual freedom,” it said.

Intimidation and fear impede intellectual freedom. Growing tribalism means that many students are reticent to engage their peers in real conversations.

This silent passivity allowed overzealous administrators and raucous students to limit the free exchange of ideas on campuses.

Some state policymakers, however, have refused to stand by idly as public universities began to confine free speech activity to narrow, often remote, strips of campus.

Jonathan Butcher from The Heritage Foundation noted that Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin have already taken corrective measures by eliminating free speech zones in their public universities.

Arizona’s free speech protections, in particular, preserve the hallmarks of campus free speech since the “public areas of campus—such as sidewalks and campus lawns—are public forums and are open on the same terms to any speaker.”

Moreover, students who repeatedly infringe on others’ expression of free speech can face expulsion.

It’s unfortunate that policymakers must go to such great lengths to protect a basic tenet of a free society in public universities. But the most distressing element of the conflict is the pervasive silence among students who are unwilling to speak their minds.

Universities were places where students challenged each other, sometimes fiercely, and engaged in civil discourse.

Coretta Scott King envisioned the modern student as “a significant political actor with amazing power to influence the course of societies all over the world.” However, past students only earned her admiration because they were willing to engage their peers in civil discourse—exercising free speech.

To be worthy of her plaudits, today’s students must break their silence.

SOURCE





  
Attendance matters when it comes to student achievement

A new report from the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) reinforces the strong correlation between school attendance and student achievement, and highlights the importance of forming good attendance habits early.

The release of the Attendance Matters Spotlight report is also a reminder of how crucial it is to ensure students feel welcome, safe and supported at school, and encouraged to attend.

The evidence summary indicates that the overall school attendance picture in Australia is good, with year 1-10 students attending, on average, 92% of available school days in Australia – a rate comparable to other countries with high performing education systems.

Nevertheless, there remain areas of concern including that 25% of Australian school students attend less than 90% of school days, and that school attendance decreases as remoteness increases. 

The report also identifies that there remains a notable difference in attendance rates between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and non-Indigenous students. In 2018, the overall national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander attendance rate was 82.3% compared to 92.5% for non-Indigenous students. This shows that there is still much more work to do to lift attendance rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Highlighting that ‘every day counts’ when it comes to attendance, the report reinforces the negative correlation between absence from school and achievement, which is cumulative and can affect academic outcomes in future years of schooling.

Given the importance of early learning experiences on academic and social achievement, the report identifies school attendance should be prioritised in the formative years, and that strategies for addressing chronic absenteeism must take a holistic approach.

The report also highlights the important role families, schools, policy makers and the community have to play in the complex task of addressing student absenteeism and enabling students to reach their potential in the classroom.

AITSL CEO Mark Grant said while the issues contributing to absenteeism are complex and challenging, it is important that systems, sectors and jurisdictions across Australia continue working together to ensure schools are welcoming places that students want to attend.

“I’m proud to release this report to provide a summary of evidence the teaching profession and decision makers across the education sector can use to reflect on their approach to the critical issue of ensuring Australian school students attend and truly engage with their learning,” Mr Grant said.

“The findings reinforce that there remain particular challenges to address when it comes to attendance and that understanding the relationship between attendance and achievement can help teachers, school leaders, parents, and school communities promote positive attendance habits and tailor early and individualised interventions, to address problematic absenteeism and lift outcomes for students.

“Policies and responses at the school level will be most effective if they simultaneously target factors both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the school gates, showing that we all have a part to play when it comes to school attendance.

“While there are many complex issues at play when it comes to school attendance, we shouldn’t shy away from the challenges. Clearly it is crucially important to involve families and communities in purposeful, authentic and ethical ways to provide students with every opportunity to reach their potential.”

Medianet Press Release: aapmedianet@aapmedianet.com.au


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