Jonathan Haidt is coming to our school next week, and somehow I landed on his piece the Coddling of the American Mind independently of that visit. I'm generally skeptical of the latest pedagogical fad, because I simply am not that impressed with the sort of scholarship that goes on in education programs. It seems an intensely ideological field with few of the sort of "challenge everything" mindsets you see in other disciplines.
Haidt and Greg Lukianoff are not education professors. Haidt is a social psychologist and Lukianoff a lawyer. They attack the principle that students are so delicate in their feelings that things that might upset them should be avoided. Thus, we get mandates about microaggressions. I remember my microaggression workshop. It was largely helpful in the "don't be as asshole" toolbox that we should all seek to enlarge.
However, we are now being told what language we should not use in written comments. "Suzy appears not to care and has demonstrated little work ethic" is now considered loaded language that contains some sort of "trauma" that we need to shield Suzy from. It might even be considered racist if Suzy is non-White. Suzy's actual engagement with the work is secondary to the need to protect her from language that she might find distressing.
Last year, when I was gone, the school more or less but a kibosh on discussing the Gazan War. The raw feelings and intensely complicated nature of this conflict has created feelings that many students - here and at universities - simply cannot process effectively. Some of the screaming about this comes from Bad Actors simply looking to leverage their outrage for attention. That's a separate issue. The inability of young people to argue passionately and then when it's over walk away with being traumatized has largely disappeared.
What makes Haidt's argument interesting is that he points out that this approach has NOT led to better mental health outcomes. That, ultimately, is why this sort of "coddling" needs to stop.
