Hi, I thought it would be useful to respond to this. I teach in South 
Africa - mostly refugees from politically troubled and unimaginably violent 
places. In such a situation I would suggest the theme of crime and 
punishment is risky. Some students are severely traumatised - some women 
have been raped. Some men and women have literally run for their lives. We 
try to provide a safe space for students to learn and socialise. If a 
student needs help, advice or counselling we try to arrange that. It seems 
better to avoid triggering painful PTSD, particularly in a mixed class 
situation, when in fact we're trying to give English language skills.

I believe a teacher should be sensitive, empathetic and discreet with 
students. Culture, religion, taboo and life experience must be respected. It 
seems quite insensitive and arrogant to impose subject matter that might be 
crass, offensive or cause pain. We are very careful when teaching language 
around families too as we have had students who lost all theirs and parents 
who do not know where their children are. I asked one student last week how 
many children she had. She could not answer and was visibly upset. Another 
student took me to one side and told me she had been raped by soldiers and 
had to run.  She has her baby with her. She does not know what happened to 
her other 3 children. I'm not saying that lesson material should be 
completely sanitized but I can't understand the point of using themes that 
risk offending or hurting. We teach adults, and many know far more about 
violence, punishment, crime and rape than we can ever imagine, though they 
may not appear worldly or sophisticated. Why should we think we need to 
teach them to think critically?

This is my opinion and relates to a specific context but I know it's shared 
by my colleagues. I hope it's helpful.

Best wishes

Julie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Pelin Altan McLaren
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2015 9:51 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: I need your advice on this: Teaching "taboo" subjects

Quick poll. I need your advice on this. I am an ESOL teacher and a teacher 
trainer. I work with refugees and immigrants and teach them English and 
train people who would like to become English teachers. My students are 
mostly from the Middle East and Africa. And here's where the dilemma is:

There is this material in an activity book (700 Classroom Activities by 
David Seymour and Maria Popova and published by MacMillan) where students 
are supposed to be discussing crime and punishment. I asked my trainee 
teachers last Friday to teach the material (they teach my class every Friday 
and we hold a teaching practice session afterwards and discuss their 
experience and get prepared for the following Teaching Practice session) and 
we were discussing how we could tackle it. Two of my trainees bluntly 
refused to teach the material or discuss one of the crimes listed in the 
activity in the classroom. The crime they don't want to include in the 
activity is rape. If I summarise crudely, their reasons were: "Some students 
in the class are from the Middle East, they are Muslim, it's a taboo, they 
don't talk about such matters publicly and openly, we might offend them, 
what if someone was raped, it could go wrong". The other two trainee 
teachers were, like me, quite open to include the crime and tackle the 
situation. Their reasons: "If it's a taboo we should break it and talk about 
it, this is probably the only place they can express their opinions and 
feelings so we should give our students opportunities to express themselves, 
they would find out about different opinions and compare their opinions 
about the matter, so it's critical thinking so it's a good practice".

As the two trainees were not comfortable with the idea, I just had to rule 
rape out at the end with regret. I should have been a bit forceful perhaps, 
after all they will have to deal with some so-called "offensive" and "taboo" 
material later in their career over and over again. So they should have gone 
for it and tried it to see if they were right in their initial judgment and 
if so, what they could do next time to mend the situation. I guess I was 
worried that they would crumble under pressure or create a mess due to their 
lack of experience....

But what do you think? What would you do if you were me? Is it OK to include 
"taboo" subjects in your teaching? Or is it better to rule them out?

I desperately need your opinions. The trainees have three weeks to get 
prepared and teach the material; so if you think they should teach the 
material, I will go ahead and include rape in the activity.

Thank you.

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in research into teaching and learning ESOL. ESOL-Research is managed by 
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***********************************
ESOL-Research is a forum for researchers and practitioners with an interest in research into teaching and learning ESOL. ESOL-Research is managed by James Simpson at the Centre for Language Education Research, School of Education, University of Leeds.
To join or leave ESOL-Research, visit
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/ESOL-RESEARCH.html
To contact the list owner, send an email to
[log in to unmask]