The movable middle
In my education career, I’ve often had to teach contentious topics. I’ve always done this from a particular (progressive, left wing) perspective. But I learned very early in my career – thanks to a couple of really formative conversations with mentors – that the way to teach people to be kinder, more inclusive, and more respectful doesn’t lie in making them feel dismissed and unsafe and unwelcome. It lies in kindness, inclusion, and respect, even when we disagree.
The first of these mentors, on my second school placement in teacher training, described to me a sort of continuum for opinions on any given issue. “There are people who are right at this end,” she held her left hand out wide, “and people at this end,” and she waved her right hand as far from the left as she could. “Those people will not move. We’re not trying to move those people because they’re unmovable. The rest,” she indicated the space between her hands, “can be moved, with reason and evidence and appeals to emotion. These are the people we focus our efforts on.”
The second mentor explained to me that the ones who are willing to learn were willing to walk with us into understanding but would not be dragged or pushed. If we tried to drag or push them, they would come to a screeching halt and, sometimes, run back the other way. In fact, she used the metaphor of holding hands – “we need to bring these students gently, kindly with us” – rather than berating them for whatever we saw as grievous errors in their perspectives.
I understand anger and bewilderment in the face of opinions that are harmful, and I don’t really want to tone police here (although I kind of am, but I’ll come back to that). But I also understand that people always make the best choice they can for themselves with whatever resources, knowledge, and power they have available to them. Disposition and personality are a part of it, but not as significant a part as you might think. Most of the people who voted for Trump did so for good reasons (reasons that were good to them), whether you like it or not. We do not bring people into sharing our understanding by belittling them or disrespecting them. We only make it unsafe for them to be with us and that’s the last thing we need to do. So while we have a right to our anger and to express it, this is too important to risk alienating people who, if we did our jobs as people seeking justice and safety in the world, would be on our side.
What triggered this thought process for me was the stream of “really Americas” and “wtf Americas” and “American insert-ableist-slur-heres” in my social media feed this morning. Although I know these are flippant remarks, I also know they’re counterproductive. The Americans who support Trump are listening to you and rolling their eyes, seeing you as a sore loser, feeling your disdain for them and doubling down on their opinions. The people all over the world who would have voted for Trump if they could feel defensive, and their alignment with Trump supporters grows stronger. The Americans who don’t support Trump are likewise hearing your disdain for them, because you’ve lumped them all in together, and many of them are hurting badly right now. You’re hurting them again.
We have to be above hatred and above these kinds of thoughtless actions if we’re going to win this thing. Think about it: if, for example, a majority of people in one of the largest and most powerful countries in the world have supported the other side, then it follows that, in order to win – to have our majorities – we need to be able to work with anyone within that population who can be moved. Treating them with disrespect now – lumping them in with the people who will never change and are not moved by reason or understanding – does nothing to support this aim. The efforts – already begun – to understand why are so crucial. This is a global effort and none of us can afford to feel superior about the fact that it wasn’t our country who voted for Trump. That superiority will likely be very short-lived.
I want to finish with a little more disclaimer here. The reason I’ve always made a point of approaching students who disagree with me with respect is because it’s always been possible and safe for me to do so. If I were arguing for my right to exist with people who would never agree with me, I’d be justified in rage and unlikely to be able to be respectful in my arguments and that would be okay, in my book. I don’t suggest that marginalised and traumatised people put themselves in positions where they have to (respectfully) listen to opinions that harm them. But those of us with enough privilege to be able to safely engage with the people who can be moved (and who can recognise them when we meet them) have a huge responsibility here. We won’t change people’s minds by disrespecting them. We can’t win by dismissing everyone who disagrees with us if they’re in the majority. We won’t call anyone over to our side if we express nothing but anger and disdain for them.
