“Students learn the dangers of talk, the codes of participating and not, and they learn, in more nuanced ways, which conversations are never to be had.” (Fine & Weis, 2003, p. 23)

In “Silenced voices and extraordinary conversations: Re-imagining schools”, Michelle Fine and Lois Weis discuss the ramifications that silencing can have on students, mainly focusing on the consequences for low-income, minority youths. One of those said consequences is that students learn that there are certain things that they should not talk about and that especially in low-income schools that a “good kid” is one who is silent and quiet (Fine & Weis, 2003, p. 22).

For these reasons, I was particularly intrigued by the above quote because many times I feel that as human beings we tend to avoid talking about topics that might be difficult to discuss, such as race, ethnicity, gender, culture, etc. because it is much easier to avoid those topics rather than talk about them. Especially as educators, it is easier to side step difficult topics such as abortion as seen in Fine’s example, ‘It’s not that they [students] can’t talk about it. If the topic is raised by a student, the teacher can define abortion, just not discuss it beyond that.’ (Fine & Weis, 2003, p.23) rather than engage in a meaningful discussion with our students.

But how do we as educators talk to our students about difficult topics such as abortion without offending someone or even unintentionally showing our own biases, stereotypes or opinions about the topic? It’s not an easy task, but with proper training on how to facilitate a productive discussion about these difficult and controversial topics, the correct knowledge about the topics, and support from the school administration (ex: not getting silenced by the administration or fired for talking about said topics) I believe that it can be done.