What happens in the classroom, stays in the classroom?
Saturday, August 17, 2024
Part two of a three-part series called “Breaking my silence on social-emotional learning.” You can find part one, “I am not a therapist,” here.
In my previous post I explained how, as a teacher, I am not qualified to run a social-emotional or restorative circle and hinted at the idea that even if I was, I still shouldn’t run them in my classroom. I promise to flesh out that point in the next post, however, as I was writing I realized another problematic aspect of this needs to be addressed – confidentiality.
In order to build a community of trust and to get students to share more deeply, a teacher may be inclined to assure confidentially. This has not been explicitly taught in trainings that I remember, but I know of at least one teacher who told students in a circle that “what is shared in the circle, stays in the circle.” It’s also articulated in the Edutopia article linked in the previous post about the basics of circles. the author states “what is shared in circle, stays in circle…” in order to have “meaningful” conversations with students in which they’re vulnerable.
I can understand why a teacher would say this. They don’t want a student to share something personal and then another student to tell all their friends at lunch. But in the minds of many students this also means they cannot share what happens in the circle with anyone – including their parents. First, as mandatory reporters a teacher can’t promise that what is said in the circle stays in the circle. Second, kids are terrible at keeping secrets, especially ones that might gain them some social status if they divulge them to their buddies. And finally, this creates a rift between parents and the school as educators send the message to students that you can share anything with us – but not with your parents. This is another thorny issue in circles which is often overlooked. (Shier mentions that confidentiality in circles was a common practice by teachers she interviewed for the book.)
It’s also clear to me that this is another form of potential iatrogenesis. A therapist assures and is legally bound by confidentiality with their client for several reasons, but one critical reason is to prevent the therapist from using the knowledge revealed to him by the client for ill. If I am vulnerable with another person then I grant that person a certain amount of power over me – the power to hurt me with that knowledge by disclosing it to my friends, family, peers, or anyone else.
In assuring students a great degree of confidentiality in circles, we (teachers) are not only granting ourselves that power, but we are also granting that power to each student in the room. This recklessness will certainly lead to harm if given enough time. While many decisions we make in a classroom have the potential to do harm to students, we should aim to minimize unnecessary harm. We should only take actions that risk harming students if there is overwhelming evidence that the benefits of the action will outweigh the potential for harm. Setting aside my arguments in the first post, the harms from assuring confidentiality on their own outweigh the purported benefits of circles.