It’s inevitable, whether it’s off topic or not, someone has just made an offensive comment and the class is at a stand still. What do you do?
The first thing that we as teachers need to do happens way before an offensive or controversial statement has been made. Teachers need to establish their classroom environment as on that is filled with respect, empathy, compassion, and community. Without these core foundations, students will have no preconceived ideas that what they said was wrong, nor will you , as a teacher, have a foundation to stand on when diffusing this situation. Classroom environment is everything.
Once your classroom is effectively set up for inclusivity and unity, then you can effectively address the comment now at hand. If you’re panicking and frozen, have no fear, you have a whole student body who is likely jumping for the chance to respond. Open the conversation up to them. Ask them what they think. Students are much more engaged, mature, and socially aware than we often give them credit for.
Now, if you’ve established an inclusive and respectful classroom environment, students should be able to civilly discuss such controversial or offensive topics without adding more fuel to the fire. Ideally, students will set the standard that such words and behaviors are not tolerated or supported in the classroom. While your students engage with this, take the time to gather your thoughts in order to best facilitate this conversation effectively in order to educate students and prevent future tensions.
Make sure to establish early on that, while that statement may reflect that student’s opinion, it is hurtful and offensive to many and therefore cannot be said in your classroom. Reiterate the key principles that your classroom (and/or school district) upholds, such as respect. Continue to invite students into this conversation in a constructive way to make sure that any student directly impacted by the statement or those effected tangentially, feel heard, respected, and valued.
Tense and controversial moments such as this can be frightening and awkward, but in order to best serve and teach our students we must address these comments head on. In an additional step, it may be beneficial to pull the perpetrator of the question aside later to have a one on one conversation with them, or to do the same thing with any students directly impacted by the statement. Another option would be to open this to the whole class. Create a space after school where students are welcome to come and continue the conversation with yourself and their peers.
The most important take away in this situation is that even if you don’t know exactly what to do, you have a responsibility to every student in your class to do something. Click here for a resource that gives teachers constructive ways to address these situations and feel more confident in doing so.
The Journey 
You are so right–”Without these core foundations [respect, empathy, compassion, and community], students will have no preconceived ideas that what they said was wrong, nor will you, as a teacher, have a foundation to stand on when diffusing this situation.” Additionally, you said that when you, the teacher, are frozen, you can always open up the conversation for student input. The only thing that I would warn you about is that you should always give it 24 hours for all emotions to settle, especially if the topic you are getting input about is a little sensitive. A good idea for that is having students do a prewrite prior to the conversation. In that prewrite you could ask guiding questions so that when you open the conversation for people to share, they have already had time to process their thinking. Also, you can always ask students to give you their input in writing if they would like. This way, all student voices are heard and not just the voices of the bravest/most outspoken kiddos in your class.
LikeLike