Special Report
Teaching Opinion

‘People Can Only Hear When They’re Heard': Navigating Divisive Conversations

How curiosity can help
By Jaclyn Borowski & Elizabeth Rich — September 19, 2024 1 min read
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We all have personal biases; it comes with being human. When it comes to students, though, educators might feel challenged by how to help them understand what their biases are and keep an open mind in spite of them.

Journalist and author Mónica Guzmán says educators can help students overcome their biases, but doing so requires building a muscle of their own. There’s one tool at everyone’s disposal to help reduce the tendency to make assumptions about others. Guzmán, who wrote I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times, believes that building the skill of curiosity can help us get to a better place when it comes to addressing difficult conversations.

In this video, she talks about how to foster curiosity in ourselves and in students so that we can build greater understanding across divides.

Coverage of leadership, social and emotional learning, afterschool and summer learning, arts education, and equity is supported in part by a grant from The Wallace Foundation, at www.wallacefoundation.org. Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.

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