A student stated that the U.S. had to play "dirty" and play "Germany's game" to win World War II, insinuating that the U.S. was forced to incarcerate Japanese-Americans for military strategy. When he said this, my heart started to pound. I was nervous that the conversation was veering into hurtful territory and that other students would be upset by this comment. For one, he seemed to be absolving the U.S. of the civil rights violation that was incarceration. Moreover, he was drawing a comparison between Japanese-American incarceration and the Holocaust, which requires a lot of nuance. This was a student who tended to play “devil’s advocate” during class discussions, and I wondered if that’s where he was coming from with this comment. My instinct was to step in and challenge his idea, since I felt it was my responsibility as the teacher to intervene. I wasn’t sure how to do that without shutting the student down, though. Would it be better to let other students respond instead? W But what if no one responded? Or, what if other students agreed with him?
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Margarita
First Year Teaching
- What is the teacher's dilemma? Consider the teacher's goals, possible actions, beliefs about the situation and the students, and their own self-perceptions.
- Complete or modify the following sentence in a way that captures the teacher's central tension in the situation: "While on the one hand, the teacher believed/wanted/felt/did __________, on the other hand, they believed/wanted/felt/did __________."
- Thinking about your own classroom, how do you decide when to intervene after a potentially harmful comment versus letting students respond to each other?