Sometimes feelings, emotions, or opinions come spewing out from students during a class or from a colleague during a department meeting. What do we do with that and how can we respond without taking it personally and without attacking the other person? These moments are difficult to handle.
As with the metaphor about the adult using the oxygen mask before giving one to the child, we need to manage our own reaction first. Remain calm, breathe, and try to view the outburst as about something other than about you personally.
The next goal, depending upon the setting, could be to use the event as a teachable moment or as an opportunity to have a dialogue (or simply an expression from you) about the impact the volcanic eruption had on you and/or others.
If you are a faculty member and this happens, you will need to approach it as a teachable moment while at the same time protect the student(s) who might have been affected. You should not ignore it, as tempting as that might be. If you had established community norms on the first day of class, you can remind the students of those norms and highlight the ones that were about “no personal attacks” and “maintain respectful behavior.” If possible, you can take the spotlight off of the spewing student individually and instead offer the matter up for discussion as something that has been in the news because a number of people feel that way; you can then ask students to argue different positions in an effort to understand it from another perspective. Try not to take a side (unless someone says something so outrageously discriminatory/offensive that you have no choice) and urge your students to be open to understanding why people have different opinions rather than labeling someone as “wrong” when their beliefs differ.
If this type of encounter occurs at a work setting, it is not necessarily your responsibility to view it as an opportunity to “teach” a colleague something – unless you supervise that person and then you have a duty to discuss appropriate ways of communicating in the office. You might be able to address the outburst in front of others by saying something like, “Well I assume your intentions are good but the impact of what you just said was hurtful. I’d like to talk with you about this if you would like.” Then you can go into an office (with the door open) and discuss what transpired and how it made you feel. You might be able to make some headway in understanding each other’s viewpoints.
None of these scenarios is easy to handle, no matter how experienced or mature someone might be. I urge you to practice them just in case you encounter one – then you will have thought about it and you will be in a better position to respond.
Resources:
https://bokcenter.harvard.edu/inclusive-teaching
https://www.ctipp.org/post/guide-to-trauma-informed-meetings-discussions-conversations
