The Importance of the Pause

On Jan. 27, an hour’s worth of graphic video showing the brutal beating of 29-year-old father Tyre Nichols was released to the public. Anticipating the outpouring of righteous grief and anguish Black communities would experience in the wake of this video’s release, cities shut down and soldiered up.

The mayor of Chicago, where I live, pleaded with people to stay home. A nearby mall instituted a 3 p.m. curfew for youth and packed the halls with heavily armed police throughout the weekend. Videos of Humvees and other riot police gear in cities across the United States proliferated online. The protests have been peaceful.

I thought of my Black and brown college students who, already dealing with way too much in the news of Nichols’s murder, would go about their daily lives that weekend in a country telling them loud and clear that their grief was a threat, that their humanity was not worth holding space for and that the only response they deserved was a defensive one.

What’s a teacher to do in moments like this? As an instructional coach, I encounter this question from faculty members and teaching assistants on a regular basis. After all, Tyre Nichols’s murder followed 39 mass shootings in less than 30 days and more than a decade of police murders: Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Laquan McDonald, Ma’Khia Bryant, Adam Toledo and so many more. Nichols’s murder took place amid a global pandemic, economic upheaval, border violence and a worsening climate crisis. How on earth do we just proceed with a lesson on thermodynamics or Jane Austen? The answer is, we don’t.

Classrooms don’t exist in a vacuum. Students—and instructors—bring their whole and complicated selves together, whether those whole and complicated selves are acknowledged or not. It can sometimes feel like a minefield, especially for faculty members for whom race or gender or inequality isn’t a part of the curriculum. But instructors can do many things to help students feel seen and valued in times like these. Here are some suggestions to get started.

• Stay knowledgeable about what’s going on in the world and in your community. Do so even if it doesn’t immediately affect you. This is the context in which teaching and learning is taking place.
• Acknowledge what’s happening. Maybe you don’t feel comfortable leading a discussion about police violence or an immigration raid in the community, and that’s OK. But you can say things like, “As we begin class today, I just want to acknowledge that many of us might be carrying a heavy weight in light of recent events.” It’s often helpful to then name the event. Phrases like “everything that’s going on” can sound like avoidance to students or promote shame or fear around the issue.
• Offer support and refer students. A simple acknowledgment can feel awkward unless you have something to offer. Follow it up with offers of support and referrals to campus and community resources students that might not be aware of or feel comfortable seeking out without a suggestion. “I’m available during office hours, email or by appointment if you need to talk. I also want to remind you that the university does have resources that are available to all students, including mental health resources. There’s no shame in accessing them. This is what they’re there for.” Then provide links to those resources.

Those simple measures can go a long way toward helping students feel seen and valued in moments like these. They don’t require you to be an expert on the issue or a therapist. But as a teacher, mentor and guide, you can acknowledge students and point them to trained professionals and encourage help-seeking behaviors. You might be surprised at the thank-yous that start rolling in to your inbox after a simple acknowledgment of what students are carrying.

If you’re feeling moved to go a step further, there are other ways to engage students in moments of crisis or trauma:

• Make space, and don’t be afraid to pause your class for a longer period to address something. Charging through the material with a sense of urgency might not get you very far if they are distracted or not with you. Sometimes more learning takes place when we slow down and take the time to connect.
• Tend to students’ real-time needs. Maybe it’s a breathing exercise to help students ground themselves and prepare for learning. Or maybe it’s a moment for quiet reflection in which you prompt students to list their fears, anxieties and hopes. For example, I led this exercise during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests:

Take five minutes to yourself to reflect on the following prompts. Take notes, as volunteers will be asked to share their thoughts in discussion.

1. What do you need from your peers and the instructor in this moment?
2. What can you provide for your peers in this moment?
3. What is one thing you wish that we knew about you or your experience?

The most important thing here is not to compel students to share. One brave volunteer usually comes forward. You can also be the first to go and model the exercise for them.

• Connect course content to current events. That may be more difficult in some fields than in others, but again, little things can go a long way. How do inorganic chemicals surface in our debates about the environment and public health? What are the politics of brain science, given the legacies of scientific racism in the medical field? What does all this talk of voting patterns mean in a context of voter suppression and low turnout? Don’t force it—they’ll notice—but do consider the ways in which your material connects to students’ lives and careers.
• Avoid debating subjects that question students’ right to exist freely and safely in this world. Instead, make it clear that all discussion of topics like Black Lives Matter or trans rights will begin with a certain set of evidence-based assumptions. Examples: All people have inherent value and the ability to learn. Black lives matter. This classroom is gender inclusive and honors gender expression. To be inclusive, orient discussions around the pursuit of knowledge and solutions to problems instead of setting up ideological debates that draw out harmful stereotypes and beliefs. Neutrality won’t work, either; even the simple mantra of “do no harm” can require active steps to ensure your classroom or virtual space is inclusive.
• Seek help for addressing a crisis. Most colleges and universities have crisis response teams, mental health professionals and diversity practitioners who are experienced in dialogue and facilitation. You may even have experts on your campus who can combine DEI and pedagogical support, like an instructional designer who specializes in diversity and inclusion.
• Protect colleagues with minoritized identities who might be disproportionately affected. It’s not their job to teach the department or to help the rest of the department cope with the event or crisis of concern. These are people deserving of care, not extra and unpaid labor, in difficult times. Has a sexual assault on campus made the news? It’s time for men to step up. Is police violence and social unrest in your city causing racial tension? White people need to step up. Don’t ask what you can do to help. Just do it.
• Be authentic. Different people have different styles, and what works for someone else might not come across as genuine when you do it. I once in a class led a breathing exercise that I found online. A couple of my students stopped me and said, “Bartlett, stop. This isn’t you. We’re here for the nerd shit—stick to that.” After a moment of embarrassment, I said, “OK, let’s do some unpacking instead.” We proceeded to talk through the current event, because I’m better at facilitating a discussion than I am at mindfulness exercises! Do you. They’ll appreciate it.

Instructors aren’t the solution to every problem this world faces. That much we know. But we do have the power to set the tone of our classrooms and provide students with safe, affirming spaces where they can feel supported in their learning. By learning how to pause and acknowledge the heaviness of our troubled times, we can go a long way toward that goal.