Trigger warnings - what are they really for?

[dismalist]

I should have added that I also warn students about which parts of my logic classes will be especially hard.

The point, as with normal content warnings, is just to make sure they aren't blindsided. It doesn't let anyone off the hook, it just lets them come to class with their game face on.

Trigger warning for logic? Hard? How about for arithmetic? Hard? How about for life?

Alas, no.

[ergative]

I should have added that I also warn students about which parts of my logic classes will be especially hard.

The point, as with normal content warnings, is just to make sure they aren't blindsided. It doesn't let anyone off the hook, it just lets them come to class with their game face on.

This seems like a perfectly appropriate approach. I think people who get all het up about trigger warnings are making it more complex than it needs to be. Ok, so rigorous research about PTSD suggests they don't work in a clinical fashion. But students are asking for them, and given how much admin bows down before the almighty student requests, I don't see why it's so hard to say 'note: today's class includes discussions of incest' or whatever.

Students select their classes (in part) on the basis of the material taught in those classes. They enroll in classes whose material is interesting, and they avoided classes whose material is not interesting. Why on earth shouldn't they know whether the material might or might not be distressing as well as interesting when they make those decisions?

People like to argue about slippery slopes (oh noes! What's next? Trigger warnings for life being hard*?! My vapours!), but that reasoning goes the other way: How dare students demand information about course material! It ruins the academic experience to know whether this course covers 19th century or 17th century literature! They have no need to know that this is a clinical psychology course rather than organic chemistry. Back in my day we just signed up for 'English' and 'Science' and we learned what we learned. Snowflakes these days!

See? Isn't that absurd? Just give students information that allows them to make decisions. That information includes times, instructors, prerequisites, and material covered in the course. It's a simple enough matter to indicate whether any of that material includes rape, violence, torture, or other commonly-accepted forms of wildly disagreeable stuff.

*I will note, parenthetically, that everyone who says students need to be prepared for the "real world" by late policies or whatever are, in fact, endorsing exactly this argument: prepare them for something disagreeable about life outside the university by making sure they know what is in it.

[jerseyjay]

Here is my "trigger warning" from last semester's Comparative Slavery course:

Note about content and vocabulary: This is a course that examines different systems of human beings' buying and selling other human beings while denying their humanity. Slavery was based on  violence and torture, including sexual violence. Slavery was based on and justified by racism. If you are not able to explore and discuss these subjects with maturity and sensitivity, or you find these subjects too uncomfortable, please do not take the course. As will be discussed in the course, there is no consensus among scholars and others about how to refer to certain people, places, and phenomena we will be examining; in addition, we will encounter vocabulary that (by today's standards and perhaps by contemporary standards) appears insensitive or just plain wrong. Again, if you are not able to discuss these topics with maturity and sensitivity, please do not take this class.

I do not spend much time on this.  I do not think I have had students drop the class because of this instead, of say, the heavy reading schedule. (Although they don't have to tell me why they drop.) I do not have warnings on individual sessions. In part this "warning" was designed to allow me to talk about various subjects without having to put a warning each time I get near something awful. It serves as sort of an eruv, covering the entire course.

[Puget]

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with giving information about what the class will cover so students can decide whether to take it, especially if it isn't obvious from the course title or description (I would think that anyone signing up for a class on slavery would have a pretty good idea what they're in for, but you know your students best). I also think it is personally reasonable to give a heads up before showing graphic material in class. That's more like the rating on a movie.

What the research pretty clearly shows *is* harmful is suggesting, before talking about something, that some students may be too fragile to handle a topic and should avoid it. Let's see if I can explain with a metaphor-- imagine you're on a hike, thinking your doing OK managing the difficult trail, but your friend keeps asking every few minutes if you're OK. After a while you are likely to start to question whether you really are OK, since your friend seems to think you aren't. That's very different than your friend giving you the route description ahead of time so you can decide to go or not, and helping you out if it really does get too hard.

[marshwiggle]

I should have added that I also warn students about which parts of my logic classes will be especially hard.

The point, as with normal content warnings, is just to make sure they aren't blindsided. It doesn't let anyone off the hook, it just lets them come to class with their game face on.

This seems like a perfectly appropriate approach. I think people who get all het up about trigger warnings are making it more complex than it needs to be. Ok, so rigorous research about PTSD suggests they don't work in a clinical fashion. But students are asking for them, and given how much admin bows down before the almighty student requests, I don't see why it's so hard to say 'note: today's class includes discussions of incest' or whatever.

The question here is about what actions this entitles students to take for today's class. The idea that others have mentioned of a heads-up before the entire course makes perfect sense. On a class-by-class basis, it's not clear that there's any benefit. If a student thinks this class will be too traumatic, can s/he skip the class? Will s/he still have to do the assignments, tests, etc. covering the same material, which will presumably also traumatic? (Maybe even more so for having to talk about it her/himself.?)

Before the course, being able to decide whether or not to enroll is pretty clear-cut. Deciding how to handle today's class and whatever course requirements stem from it is very murky.

[downer]

Some of my classes contain discussions of violence, disease, suffering, death, abuse, self-harm, and various kinds of "deviance" or non-conformity to social norms. I don't give any warnings per se. Some of the material is very graphic -- even the Iliad.

I very rarely get any students finding material too difficult. Once a student opted out of an abortion discussion because she recently had an abortion. Once a student asked me to stop talking about death because she had experienced loss. Never has an administrator or chair said anything to me about worries regarding the material.

So I am wondering where the call for "trigger warnings" comes from.

[Caracal]

We discuss tough stuff in some of my classes, like torture. And you can't talk about torture without talking about sexual assault and rape, and worse.

I give a content warning so that nobody is caught off guard. It's like an MPAA or BBFC label.

And that's it.

Most of my courses cover such stuff. I taught a course on World War II, which discussed, inter alia, the Holocaust, the bombing of Dresden, the siege of Leningrad, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I also taught a course on comparative slavery, which discussed, inter alia, rape, violence, torture, etc. And then I taught a course on race relations from Reconstruction to the civil rights movement, which discussed, inter alia, lynching, rape, torture, etc. I put on the syllabus, and mention the first class, that we will be covering such topics. I would understand why somebody might not want to take such a class. I mean, when I was an undergrad, I decided not to take an entire class on the Holocaust, just because it seemed like a hellish way to spend a semester.

On trauma: I think this is a case where the scientific meaning of a word and its common usage diverge. I think that the last period has been traumatic and depressing. I am, not however, traumatized or depressed in a clinical sense.

Yeah, I'm a historian too, and almost everything I teach is potentially upsetting. I tend to think most warnings would be superfluous. If you are taking a course on the Civil War, I assume you're prepared for violence and death. If we are reading something truly upsetting, I might mention that it's a tough read. I don't do that to prevent trauma. I just think it's good for students to not go in completely blind to something really awful.

[jimbogumbo]

As an undergrad we took a sequence of two required courses in which a great deal of fiction was required reading. However, each instructor chose the works that would be read, and you wouldn't know what until you went to the bookstore and in some cases until during the course itself. Trigger warnings in such a class (especially since the works were often ones not familiar to the majority of students) would have been appropriate. As an example, a rape victim absolutely should be allowed some choice as to when they choose to deal with the subject, not as a part of an unexpected freshman or sophomore class discussion.

[Caracal]

As an undergrad we took a sequence of two required courses in which a great deal of fiction was required reading. However, each instructor chose the works that would be read, and you wouldn't know what until you went to the bookstore and in some cases until during the course itself. Trigger warnings in such a class (especially since the works were often ones not familiar to the majority of students) would have been appropriate. As an example, a rape victim absolutely should be allowed some choice as to when they choose to deal with the subject, not as a part of an unexpected freshman or sophomore class discussion.

I think in some circumstances it makes sense to give students a heads up. ("We're going to start reading Lolita on Monday. It was and is a really controversial book. It's about a relationship between a teacher and an underage student and there are some parts of it that are pretty graphic and pretty upsetting. It is an important and interesting book...as always, let me know if you have any questions or concerns.")

However, I really don't think I could teach effectively if I needed to give students a heads up before sexual violence came up in my classes. Just this semester, I can think of at least four times where we talked about it as it related to some reading or lecture. It wasn't at the center of the reading in any of these cases, but it was there in the background and it was important to discuss it, at least briefly. I can't really give students a choice to leave every time sexual violence comes up in my class. There was a lot of sexual violence in history. I'd be a crappy teacher if I just ignored it.

[ergative]

Before the course, being able to decide whether or not to enroll is pretty clear-cut. Deciding how to handle today's class and whatever course requirements stem from it is very murky.

Right, I think this is where the discussion starts having people talking past each other. One extreme is not letting students know anything about what they're getting, into, and the consensus seems to be that there's no advantage of that. We should tell them before they enroll in the course.

But the other extreme, which is what tends to elicit shrieks of 'snowflake!' is this:

I can't really give students a choice to leave every time sexual violence comes up in my class. There was a lot of sexual violence in history. I'd be a crappy teacher if I just ignored it.

I think we're also in agreement on this too. Just because certain topics might be more distressing for some than for others is no reason to excuse them from that portion of the class. Especially if we gave them the option to pass on that before they enrolled, we shouldn't be excusing them from class every time they're uncomfy.

So what are we arguing about? Is it whether we should provide content warnings on the day's material, rather than the entire course's material? That certainly seems to be what people here says they do:

If we are reading something truly upsetting, I might mention that it's a tough read. I don't do that to prevent trauma. I just think it's good for students to not go in completely blind to something really awful.

I should have added that I also warn students about which parts of my logic classes will be especially hard.

The point, as with normal content warnings, is just to make sure they aren't blindsided. It doesn't let anyone off the hook, it just lets them come to class with their game face on.

But then, from Puget's extremely good analogy about hikes, maybe even this is too much? Or is it fine to give a quick content note--like movie ratings on Netflix that explain, earnestly, that this show includes some strong language and moments of character danger--as long as we don't actually suggest that students are too fragile to handle it. Maybe framing it the way jerseyjay does in the syllabus--these are sensitive topics, so be prepared to discuss them respectfully and maturely--is the way to go. It provides the content note but frames it in terms not of trauma but as a reminder of the expectations of classroom behavioral standards.

[Caracal]

Before the course, being able to decide whether or not to enroll is pretty clear-cut. Deciding how to handle today's class and whatever course requirements stem from it is very murky.

Right, I think this is where the discussion starts having people talking past each other. One extreme is not letting students know anything about what they're getting, into, and the consensus seems to be that there's no advantage of that. We should tell them before they enroll in the course.

But the other extreme, which is what tends to elicit shrieks of 'snowflake!' is this:

I can't really give students a choice to leave every time sexual violence comes up in my class. There was a lot of sexual violence in history. I'd be a crappy teacher if I just ignored it.

I think we're also in agreement on this too. Just because certain topics might be more distressing for some than for others is no reason to excuse them from that portion of the class. Especially if we gave them the option to pass on that before they enrolled, we shouldn't be excusing them from class every time they're uncomfy.

So what are we arguing about? Is it whether we should provide content warnings on the day's material, rather than the entire course's material? That certainly seems to be what people here says they do:

If we are reading something truly upsetting, I might mention that it's a tough read. I don't do that to prevent trauma. I just think it's good for students to not go in completely blind to something really awful.

I should have added that I also warn students about which parts of my logic classes will be especially hard.

The point, as with normal content warnings, is just to make sure they aren't blindsided. It doesn't let anyone off the hook, it just lets them come to class with their game face on.

But then, from Puget's extremely good analogy about hikes, maybe even this is too much? Or is it fine to give a quick content note--like movie ratings on Netflix that explain, earnestly, that this show includes some strong language and moments of character danger--as long as we don't actually suggest that students are too fragile to handle it. Maybe framing it the way jerseyjay does in the syllabus--these are sensitive topics, so be prepared to discuss them respectfully and maturely--is the way to go. It provides the content note but frames it in terms not of trauma but as a reminder of the expectations of classroom behavioral standards.

Yeah, I think that's all reasonable. What I don't think is helpful to anyone is the tendency to view these kinds of practices as a set of rules, rather than ways to give students some context for their readings and class discussions. A couple years ago, I assigned a book about lynching in the US. It was a good book, but it was tough. I told the students it was an upsetting reading beforehand.

Then when we discussed it in class, I told the students that as a historian, I read about pretty terrible things all the time, and while I'm not numb to it, I usually find it easy to keep a professional distance from the material. However, with this stuff, I would be reading back through it trying to get ready for class and would just get lost in the horror of it all. And then we talked about whether we should read this stuff and what the point was.

I'm a lot more comfortable with that kind of approach then framing it in terms of a need for trigger warnings before anything potentially upsetting comes up.

[Parasaurolophus]

One thing that happens with some of these discussions in my field that may not in others is that students may feel more complicit in some of what we're discussing, and that can be disturbing when you realize the implications of your commitments.

Take torture again (note: this is a very general sketch of how a class on the topic might proceed. I'm omitting a lot of crucial pedagogical detail). If we're examining the ethical justifications for torture, ticking bomb cases are bound to come up. And film and TV have really primed us to accept ticking bomb cases, and to accept that we should torture in those scenarios (never mind that the thought experiment itself is seriously flawed). Ok, great: so, before you dive into the topic, students for the most part accept the utilitarian calculus that underlies that scenario. And if you ask them before going into the topic, they'll say they think you should torture the terrorist, even though that's an awful thing to do. They'll even put themselves in the heroic position and say I'd torture the terrorist.

And when you start breaking the case down, it becomes clear to them that this means they're also committed to torturing an innocent--say, a child--if it means saving thousands of lives, as distasteful as that is. Ok, fine. So far, so good.

But that's because they're imagining pulling off fingernails and beating someone up. When they learn about the critical role that rape and sexual assault play in torture, they connect the dots: they've just signed themselves up to do that to a child. And that's (rightly) distressing.

It's really important to think through your commitments in ths way. But you can't just spring a discussion like that on people, because it's extremely upsetting. It has to be handled very carefully, and as far as I'm concerned content warnings are part of doing that (though far from the whole story).

Now, not all tough topics are like that. But a lot of them involve sufficiently similar structural features that I, for one, want to be careful about introducing them.

My warnings about logic are different: they're about acknowledging the difficulty so that students don't feel blindsided or left behind, and to hedge off the math-phobia before it gets too bad. Many students just don't expect that logic will look as math-y as it does, especially as you get into more serious logic. The shift from natural language to the propositional calculus is big and scary, and the shift from that to mathematical logic is kind of horrific.

[marshwiggle]

One thing that happens with some of these discussions in my field that may not in others is that students may feel more complicit in some of what we're discussing, and that can be disturbing when you realize the implications of your commitments.

Take torture again (note: this is a very general sketch of how a class on the topic might proceed. I'm omitting a lot of crucial pedagogical detail). If we're examining the ethical justifications for torture, ticking bomb cases are bound to come up. And film and TV have really primed us to accept ticking bomb cases, and to accept that we should torture in those scenarios (never mind that the thought experiment itself is seriously flawed). Ok, great: so, before you dive into the topic, students for the most part accept the utilitarian calculus that underlies that scenario. And if you ask them before going into the topic, they'll say they think you should torture the terrorist, even though that's an awful thing to do. They'll even put themselves in the heroic position and say I'd torture the terrorist.

And when you start breaking the case down, it becomes clear to them that this means they're also committed to torturing an innocent--say, a child--if it means saving thousands of lives, as distasteful as that is. Ok, fine. So far, so good.

But that's because they're imagining pulling off fingernails and beating someone up. When they learn about the critical role that rape and sexual assault play in torture, they connect the dots: they've just signed themselves up to do that to a child. And that's (rightly) distressing.

That's a great example, and it points out why you want to encourage people to be part of these discussions, rather than avoid them entirely. In our morally polarized society, people from various viewpoints want to suggest there is the side of the angels and everything else. These tough moral dilemmas that provide no completely satisfactory choice is what students need to struggle with as part of becoming "real adults". Humility is a very rare commodity these days.

[mahagonny]

Excuse me?

M.

The safe spaces and puppies were things set up on campuses when speakers were coming who might upset people. For the people most zealous about these things, there's no clear bounds to what they might think appropriate.

One of the points made is that such overzealousness makes a mockery of the kind of care that is actually needed and useful.

Or just that claiming that something is going to upset the listener is a way of claiming that something important and valid is being said. For example, one may say, 'we need to have a difficult conversation about race.' Diversity departments with a political agenda do this. The fact that something being said upsets someone or might upset someone is not evidence that the thing being said is accurate! Or it may upset someone for a different reason than the one identified, that is, the listener decides it is political propaganda being presented as fact, and his reaction to hearing it must follow a script.
ETA: The worst of these sessions actually sort the listener's possible reactions into categories (all unacceptable) in advance of the presentation, such as silence, leaving the room, challenging, anger. So the object is not to give the listener an opportunity to minimize 'trauma' from the hearing. The object is to induce the unacceptable stress reaction and then make a public spectacle of the person showing these purported signs of unmanageable stress.
As Jordan Peterson said 'your speech is not difficult because it is challenging to my preconceptions. It's painful to hear because it's so illogical.'

By this I'm not referring to individual posts here. Just the subject of warning someone that something will be upsetting.

[apl68]

Here is my "trigger warning" from last semester's Comparative Slavery course:

Note about content and vocabulary: This is a course that examines different systems of human beings' buying and selling other human beings while denying their humanity. Slavery was based on  violence and torture, including sexual violence. Slavery was based on and justified by racism. If you are not able to explore and discuss these subjects with maturity and sensitivity, or you find these subjects too uncomfortable, please do not take the course. As will be discussed in the course, there is no consensus among scholars and others about how to refer to certain people, places, and phenomena we will be examining; in addition, we will encounter vocabulary that (by today's standards and perhaps by contemporary standards) appears insensitive or just plain wrong. Again, if you are not able to discuss these topics with maturity and sensitivity, please do not take this class.

I do not spend much time on this.  I do not think I have had students drop the class because of this instead, of say, the heavy reading schedule. (Although they don't have to tell me why they drop.) I do not have warnings on individual sessions. In part this "warning" was designed to allow me to talk about various subjects without having to put a warning each time I get near something awful. It serves as sort of an eruv, covering the entire course.

Seems reasonable enough in today's climate.  Part of the solution would seem to be, when giving content warnings of this sort, to avoid using the term "trigger warning."  Since that term seems to have become "triggering" in its own right.