Main course

Considerations for teaching victims of torture

With David Colin Burt (Language Instructor, Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture)

Don't play hangman or similar games on the whiteboard. Don't use the red marker. Don't clutter the whiteboard with words and have everything a big mess because you want to keep the space open. You want to keep the classroom as a very pleasant experience. I even ask the students, “Would you like me to shut the door? Is it okay if I shut the door because of the noise?” And they will either say yes or no but the control is on them. Don't pry too closely when a learner is sad or upset. “Oh what's wrong?” That's a big mistake because the person's just going to lose it, there is a possibility. So you just let the person be sad. And you carry on and you just look at them and give them a nod. But do not pry. That's not my job, I'm a teacher. Another thing is when you're standing looming over a student while they're doing their work, that's not good. I sit down with them, talk across the table. You see them crouching if you loom over them too much. Another thing is when you're doing a health class and you want to do parts of the body, it's best to show a full human form not just a hand or not just a leg because this triggers things of the past that they really want to put behind them. Doctors and white cloaks, that's another thing. Doctors, during the process of torture, were specifically there, whether they wanted to or not, to revive the victim so they could be tortured more. So doctors are pretty scary things. A lot of people have noticed doctors just wearing regular clothes these days. The white cloak might be a thing of the past. To walk away from a learner who needs something. A learner's talking to you and somebody else calls you. If you walk away from that person, that's really not a good thing to do. You give everybody their proper attention and say, “Excuse me, I'll be right back” or “yes, I'm really interested in what you're saying.” Don't ask about close family members during family themes: “Describe your family to me.” “Well, they were all taken away and I don't know where anybody is anymore” or “I had to go identify my mother.” You don't need to go there, so you use a generic family: “This is somebody else's family.” And they're very happy to learn this vocabulary because they're getting back to a normal life. I just don't even ask them about their family. If they speak to me, yes, okay, that's fine. Don't delve into personal issues even though the learner seems to want to deal with them. I just keep it to, “Okay, this is a classroom. We're here to learn. If you have a personal issue or something, maybe you can talk with me or go see the counsellor after class.” Or I will go immediately and speak with somebody who is in a position to deal with this kind of thing. Another thing: I don't assume that a lost or misplaced possession is a small matter. If somebody's pen is gone, this is very important to this person. I'd go into a panic with them. I'll say: “Where's the pen? Okay, let's all work together and find the pen.” Because to lose something, no matter how small, is a trigger of something from the past, of things being taken from them. Being deprived of the smallest things has a big effect. If somebody is having a tantrum and is arguing with somebody, I try not to get in between or block it. That's a really difficult issue, but I do try to redirect everybody to calm down: “Let's be friends.” Also, in my class because everybody shares a similar trauma in their background, I would see other classmates come up and hug the student who's having a problem: “We love you, we love you.” And she says: “I'll kill you.” And I say: “Kill her with love,” and then suddenly that became the word of the day. And don't assume this is a normal classroom even during the best of days. When another substitute teacher comes in, you really have to caution them. You just cannot assume this is a normal class even though I'm treating it as a normal class.