Working With Difficult Material: A Conversation

In this workshop we plan to think together with the attendees about working with difficult material, especially as it applies to vulnerabilized students such as those who have experienced displacement. Some texts or ideas can be triggering because of they contain ideas that can be alienating or even offensive, using language that is at a remove from people’s life experiences or is directly dismissive of their social and political realities.  As teachers and as learners we face a number of issues which we propose to think about through a series of keywords: language & vocabulary, a culture of learning, devalued knowledge, sensitivity & offense, and power dynamics.