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4 steps to navigating difficult conversations

There are many ways to have difficult conversations. A simplified approach developed by Dr. Tanya Sharpe and Dr. Geoff Greif, from The University of Maryland School of Social Work uses only four steps and can help you have something to lean on if you become uncomfortable:

1. Inquiry

Try to have an attitude of discovery and curiosity. Narrow your focus to the person you’re speaking with. Start by asking open questions (those are questions that can’t easily be answered with just yes or no), for example: Who are they? What are they trying to discuss? How did their experiences and the belief systems they grew up with shape their point-of-view?

2. Acknowledge

It’s important to know that acknowledging their personal experience is not the same as agreeing. We can make others feel heard by acknowledging their experience without agreeing with everything they say. Allow space for them to share without interrupting to add your own experience. The goal is to have a constructive conversation and help each other learn.

3. Widen the discussion

The next step is to widen the discussion by incorporating wider perspectives into the conversation. A good conversation can happen when it is open-ended and people express and learn from one another’s experiences and perspectives. What can you see from your perspective that they may have missed? Is there something you can learn?

4. Problem solving approach

Now you’re ready to begin building solutions together. How can we move forward from here? It is important to remember that the goal of these conversations isn’t to solve racism, but to better equip ourselves and those around us in the ongoing fight against injustice.

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race

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TEDxHampshireCollege - Jay Smooth - How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race

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How we think about the moment

• The first aspect to making these unanticipated and difficult moments productive lies in how we think about the moment—as instructors. If we can get out of our own emotional confusion, we can begin to see the heat as an opportunity to explore different views about the topic.

• We can also use the image of leaving the dance floor of the discussion and our emotions and going up to the balcony. From there we can look for a relevant meta-level issue that the hot moment raises. Often the difficult statement illustrates the complexity of questions being discussed.

• It helps sometimes to consider the sub-text. What is the student really saying? Why is this coming up at all, and why at this particular time? Sometimes students are unable to clearly articulate what they’re thinking. After double-checking our impressions with the student, we can use this information to further the conversation.

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Helping the students think about it

• To help students think productively about issues raised during hot moments, establish discussion norms early in the term, or at the moment if necessary. Don’t permit personal attacks. Model norms that encourage an open discussion of difficult material—by being open to multiple perspectives and by asking all students to argue their point responsibly.

• We can also put the comment on the table as a topic for general discussion. This protects the student while also encouraging others who disagree to understand a view they dislike and then to suggest their position later.

• Another strategy is to require that all students seek to understand each other’s perspectives, as a prerequisite to understanding the subject at all. Ask them to listen carefully to the other point of view, to ask questions for clarification, and then to be able to restate or argue for that position. This can work for the hottest of subjects.

• Ask students to write about the issue, either in class, as a reflective and hopefully calming exercise followed by discussion, or outside of class. You can ask them to do some research on the subject and write a more balanced essay. You might require them to argue the position they most disagreed with.

• Sometimes it is important to talk with students outside of class, particularly those who have been most embroiled in the hot moment. Help them to learn something substantive from the experience—about themselves, about others, about possible positions, about the topic as a whole, and about how to voice their thoughts so that they can be heard, even by those who disagree. These conversations can save a student and keep them coming to class with an open and learning mind.

• If a student breaks down as a result of the original outburst, acknowledge it, and ask them if they would like to remain in the classroom or leave for a while. At the end of class, find the student and ask if you can be of any assistance. In extreme cases, urge them to see a counselor.

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Getting the students to do the work

• When things get hot, ask students to step back and reflect upon what they might learn from this moment. This can move the discussion to a level that helps everyone see what issues have been at stake and what the clash itself might mean.

• Another strategy is to ask students to think about how their reactions mirror the subject at hand and what they might learn from their own behavior. Often groups act out in their own discussion the topic under discussion. For example, when discussing how women’s remarks are often ignored in business settings, the class or the instructor may be ignoring the remarks of women in the class. Seeing this and talking about it in the moment can enhance people’s understanding of the issue.

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Don’t avoid the issue

• When hot moments occur because of inter-student dynamics, in ways not related to the subject matter, it can still be important to address the issue, even in a math or physics class. For example, if a student complains about another’s speaking behavior, it is tempting to go on as if the outburst hadn’t occurred. However, a discussion about who speaks and who doesn’t and why, and how to enable the quiet ones to make room for themselves and the talkative ones to listen, could help every student in the room and make room for a greater diversity of ideas in the class.

• Or if a student makes a joke like the one about irrational numbers being female, it could be useful to stop to examine why and how men make such jokes and how they affect women’s experience in math and science classes. It might be helpful to the men to understand why the women get upset by their good-humored jokes and to the women to understand how to counter them. A discussion of this sort could open the classroom to far greater collaboration the rest of the term.

• To ignore such remarks has its own consequences. Students learn that such behavior is OK and that they are not protected from it. They miss the opportunity to learn about their own behavior and its consequences. And they miss the opportunity to have a more open classroom in which a wider range of ideas can be explored.

• It is, of course, almost always useful to talk about the moment outside of class with the individuals involved, to give them support, and help them to learn from the experience.

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Having a fallback position

If you are unable to find a workable position in the moment, defer. Tell students that this is an important issue and that you will take it up at a later time. You then have time to plan strategies. This approach lets all the students in the room know that you take such occurrences seriously.

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If tensions arise, let yourself take a moment to decide whether to address the issue immediately, take it up separately with individual students, or raise it in the next class meeting. Try counting silently to 10 before speaking or reacting.

If you feel unprepared to deal with a question, comment, or topic in the moment, mark it as something the class will come back to at the next time you meet – and then raise it at the next class when you feel more prepared.

Remind students of your discussion or participation guidelines. If you haven’t already established them, propose a few key ones to guide the conversation moving forward out of the ‘hot moment’—e.g., no personal attacks, openness to hearing a range of perspectives, accountability for the effects of our words on others.

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Invite students to move around the room, write or sketch quietly, or take a few deep breaths, just to change the energy in the room before diving back in. Sometimes simply naming and then breaking the tension by doing something different with our bodies or minds can be very helpful for moving forward productively with a difficult conversation.

Find a way to connect the hot moment to course topics or learning goals. What does the big emotion in the room suggest about the importance of the topic you’re teaching? Can course materials help inform, anchor, or delimit the discussion that follows a hot moment?  Are there learning objectives in your course related to critical thinking, perspective taking, or precise framing of an argument that can be reinforced through the ways you invite students to engage?

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Where appropriate, seek to clarify student comments that have sparked tension. Students sometimes say inadvertently insulting or marginalizing things when they are struggling to understand a new perspective or feeling the intellectual discomfort of having their familiar views challenged. If you think a comment is coming from such a place of cognitive struggle, you might give the student a chance to explain the thought process behind their remark (“What do you mean by X?” or “I heard you saying Y; is that what you meant to say?”) or just ask them to rephrase if it’s evident they understand they made a misstep (“Do you want to try saying that differently?” And then, perhaps, “Let’s talk about why that initial phrasing felt so problematic.”).

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Provide a basis for common understanding by establishing facts and questions about the topics raised in the tense moment. You can share key information yourself or invite students to do so. You might write categories on the board (“what we know,” “what is disputed,” “what we want to know more about”) and elicit items for each category.  You can also explain or have the class identify why a given topic or language choice feels high stakes, especially if you think some students do not understand or respect other students’ emotional responses.

Give students some time to gather their thoughts in writing about the perspective, topic, or exchange in question before discussing it as a group. You might ask them to connect it to course materials or concepts. Writing can be especially helpful when students respond to tension with silence. You could ask them to consider, “Why is this topic so difficult to discuss?” or “What do you feel like you can’t say aloud right now?” You might collect such anonymous writings to help you make a plan for returning to the topic at another time.

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Try to depersonalize positions of disagreement that have emerged among students (e.g., instead of referring to “what X said vs. what Y said,” referring to “this disagreement about such-and-such” or “the use of phrase/word X in this context”). This can help minimize unproductive defensiveness and invite more students into the conversation.  Similarly, asking for additional possible points of view (e.g., “We’ve heard perspectives A and B -- how else might one think about this question?”) can helpfully move the conversation away from particular speakers to the ideas or perspectives they are raising. You can also depersonalize by acknowledging when a widely-held view has been raised:  “Many people share this perspective. What might their reasons be?” And then: “And why might others object to or feel disrespected by this view?”

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Help students in conflict find common ground. This might mean identifying a shared value (“I hear that you both care deeply about achieving X, but you have strongly divergent ideas about how to get there”) or asking the class to (“What do these perspectives have in common? How do they differ?”).

Where possible, give students the benefit of the doubt when they speak words that seem to devalue or discount other people or perspectives. “I don’t think this is what you intended, but...” “You may not realize how this sounded…” “I hear that you’re trying to make a joke, and yet…” While giving benefit of the doubt, you can also explain the potential impact of given language choices:  e.g., “The word X is a label that’s often objected to by those it’s used to describe because …”  “I could easily imagine that your use of that metaphor would feel like an insult to classmates who …”

After discussing intense issues, guide students to reflect individually and/or collectively on the issues raised and the perspectives they heard on these issues. Consider using a questionnaire where students can share what they appreciated about the conversation, what they learned from it, and what remains unresolved.

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Check in outside of class with the students most directly involved in the moment, to show your commitment to their success in the course, to help them learn from the experience, and to learn from them more about their experience of the discussion.

Connect with your own support network, especially if you felt targeted or personally affronted by whatever emerged in your classroom. It can be very helpful to process your responses with trusted colleagues or friends in order to return to the classroom with confidence and optimism.