Annotated Bibliography: The Coddling Of The American Mind

The word choice in this article is clearly meant for a negative emotion. Words like violate, danger, and rape are used in attempt to bring out an uncomfortable feeling. For example, according to the article, Jeannie Suk wrote in the New Yorker about Harvard students telling their professors, ". . .not to teach rape law—or, in one case, even use the word violate (as in “that violates the law”) lest it cause students distress"(1,SomethingStr). The authors also use alarming instances in attempt to evoke emotion.

Censorship in schools concentrates on creating a non-beneficial and unhelpful learning environment for students. Americans should be aware that textbooks often only present a positive image of US history because it doesn’t tell the truth about how we came to be as a nation. In Denver, Colorado, students are protesting about a review of the AP history curriculum which

In the article “Colleges Should Adopt Trigger Warnings” by Brianne Richson, her key idea is addressing why altogether colleges should implement trigger warnings; for all scholars who have agonized from traumatic past events also known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The reason for this is to aid alert scholars on any course material that may remind them of a horrendous past event. A verification of that is Richson starts off her essay by stating “We all have that memory that we’d prefer people not bring up because we want to block it from our consciousness forever.” (“Richson 97”). She tells us how we all have memories that we wish would be obliterated, that’s why trigger warnings exist and why they should be in all colleges.

Jennifer Medina argument about trigger warnings limits knowledge of education from students and causes unnecessary protection from someone feeling uncomfortable due to the materials presented in college. The author provides examples from students in college discussing the effects of trigger warning and how it makes them feel discomfort because of the graphic and explicit descriptions portray. Medina is against the use of trigger warnings because the fear of understanding distress towards literature disadvantages potential learning. One of the examples Medina mentions about is Oberlin college in Ohio, that the professors are advertised to put trigger warnings on their syllabus so the students knows everything that might trigger them before consulting information about the subject. For

Campuses are a place where students all deserve to feel safe. Trigger warnings are a way to do this. Greg Lukianoff feels that trigger warnings coddle students minds and prevent them from growing and learning. In the interview for The Atlantic Lukianoff talks about how lack of a trigger warning made a student feel normal again for the first time in years, however this is often not the case for people with disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder. This is an example of how some people feel their freedom of speech is being compromised Triggered reactions are not only highly unpleasant, but can overtake one’s consciousness by causing a flashback, or a number of other things.

Many higher education institutions in America have adopted policies regarding trigger warnings. Trigger warnings is a broad term that can be adopted to mean different things for different people. Generally, trigger warnings are supposed to be a warning to students about the content that will be discussed in a reading or lecture due to the sensitive nature of the material. There are many misconceptions about the purpose and use of trigger warnings. It is my personal belief that trigger warnings should be disclosed when sensitive material will be covered in a class.

According to the creator of trigger warnings herself, Bailey Loverin, argues they are, "'not talking about someone turning away from something they don't want to see,"' (Medina 92). Loverin states that trigger warnings aren't meant for students to use as a free pass to avoid a certain topic that might cause them discomfort but are suppose to use to just warn students that they will see images or read texts that might cause violent or depressing images from their pass that might cause them to have a panic attack on the middle of the class. Even professors like Angus Johnston, a history professor in Hostos college in New York, agree that trigger warning should be used in class because it, "prepare[s] the reader for what's coming so their attention isn't hijacked when it arrives" (Johnston). Professors like Johnston agree with trigger warnings for the sake of their student's attention to his lecture because if trigger warnings were not used in lectures then when students with previous traumas read or see certain things might be too distraught to focus on their lectures. Trigger warnings are suppose to be used to prepare students to confront a certain traumatic topic not completely turn them away from it but like everything else in the world most humans always find a way to distort the meaning of cause and use it for their liking.

Vindictive protectiveness is stopping students from learning anything in the four years or more that they spend in college. If they aren’t allowed to speak their mind there is no room for growth. The only thing they are learning is that speech should be under strict control by authorities. Thus teaching them that there really is no freedom of speech under the first

Unfortunately, our status as an exceptional nation is under threat, thanks to trigger warnings. In order to preserve our character, we must rid ourselves of trigger warnings altogether. To someone unfamiliar with the issue at hand, the notion that America is somehow under threat because of a trigger warning may come across as outlandish. However, a question must be raised: What happens to us as a society when we become too fearful of ideas?

The use of profanity is a reason why some object to The Secret Life of Bees. Ian Warwick and Peter Aggleton write about how students often feel bullied when

In her article, she refers to college as a place to broaden knowledge, “It is, hopefully, a space where the student is challenged and sometimes frustrated and sometimes deeply upset, a place where the student's world expands and pushes them to reach the outer edges – not a place that contracts to meet the student exactly where they are” (Filipovic). From this previous statement, we can conclude that the unexpected in college challenges a student to push their knowledge; however, we should not adapt the learning process to meet students’ needs. A trigger warning serves as protection against a wide range of controversial categories. It is true multiple things could trigger an emotional response, even things as little as skulls, blood, or pregnancy. The discretion on whether a topic can send a student into emotional turmoil is unpredictable.

In Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt’s article, The Coddling of the American Mind, both authors are ASSERTING that the general public uses the use of what they call trigger warnings entirely too much. Lukianoff and Haidt BELIEVE that the extended use of trigger warnings is leading to a degraded and fragile state of mind. As a social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt has made several observations concerning the overall elevated concern for the emotional well being created by the public and for the public. Co-author Greg Lukianoff also has some background credibility as CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Together, both Lukianoff and Haidt have formed an article that poses the question of whether trigger warnings are causing

The Language Police, by Diane Ravitch, meticulously documents the authors search for solving the political mystery behind the unorthodox reasoning behind K-12 education. She always believed that textbooks were designed to help students gain beneficial information, and that tests were assessed on the knowledge from what they had learned throughout the year. Over many years, testing was reflected on a controversial language of screening and affairs that negatively were associated with all personable groups. What once had been commended had now developed far beyond the method of censorship. It was now, restricted as an approach for masking the reality of literal knowledge from students.

Evidence of those changes were inherent in the way young people described social behavior, alcohol, cigarettes and other factors of those times.” (Bulletin) Currently, there are words to describe the social situations young people find themselves in, just like the young of the past. Instead of “speakeasies” that are used to bypass the law, young college students of today create “safe spaces” on college campuses because the law isn’t doing enough to protect them against hate crime. Everything about the social movement in those times is reflected back in the current era, as well as most of the eras in between them.

In the essay, University is Right to Crack Down on Speech and Behavior by Eric Posner argues that students today are more like children than adults and need protection. Posner would always refer back to the college student and how they are still kids not age wise but as their maturity. “The problem is that universities have been treating children like adults.” (Posner 185). The context of his argument is involved with the speed codes.