Heated Moment

My 10th grade African American History students were discussing W.E.B Du Bois and Booker T. Washington’s responses to racial inequality in the 19th century. Prior to the discussion, students prepared evidence for the central question: “Do DuBois or Washington have better ideas?” The discussion was actually going great until Amanda walked in late. She missed the discussion prep and beginning of the discussion. After she settled in, a student commented on how Du Bois had a more "aggressive" perspective than Washington. Amanda then exclaimed, “You can't fight aggression with aggression!” Violet responded by asking, “Why are you being called aggressive for just wanting basic human rights?,” however the tone of the comment seemed like an attack. Then the class erupted with comments supporting Amanda, saying things like "This is a discussion not a debate!" or "That's not what she meant!" 

It was getting louder and louder and I started to feel like I was fully losing control of the class in a way that could escalate to an even bigger fight. I wanted to calm the class and address the harm that was happening without putting students on the spot and making it worse. Because everything was escalating so quickly and I was feeling panicked, I had so much trouble thinking coherently about my options in the moment. Swirling in my brain were the ideas of raising my voice to get quiet, stalling with my own comments, reprimanding Violet, or ending the discussion entirely, while also knowing I really wanted to talk to those students privately. I could tell students were looking to me to take a stance on what was not okay to do in class, but my brain felt overwhelmed and lost about how to accomplish this in a moment of chaos.