Week 7 - Yuanxin Zhang

Yuanxin Zhang
Section A01
Week 07

The article “The coddling of the American mind” addresses the issue of college students demanding protections from words that offense them and the usage of triggering warning. This is the first time that I have heard about certain issue and I am very shocked. I thought it is common sense that people cannot always avoid saying the things you don’t like because they don’t know your every preference and past experience. I do feel sorry for students who had trauma in the past, but I do not think the college should protect them from stop saying any word related to their terrible memory. This is unfair for other students and professors because they cannot learn in the way they are supposed to be; they do not intend to hurt the specific students, but they have to limit their topics to provide the so-called protection. Such protection is also not helpful for those students who demand the protection because all they do is still escape but not truly get helped. Getting the cognitive behavioral therapy, as suggested in the article, is definitely a good way for them to truly get helped. Receiving help like that is more beneficial for them in a long term, since they cannot always receive protection after they leave the college and get more involved in the society. I really like one sentence in the article and I want to use it to summarize my points, “students should also be taught how to live in a world full of potential offenses”.

Question:

What are some other way to help students to get out of their negative past experience, except giving them cognitive behavioral therapy?

Reference:

1. Lukianoff, G., & Haidt, J. (2015). “The Coddling of the Asian American Mind.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company. Retrieved November 5, 2017.

2. [Digital Image]. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/09/07/492979242/half-of-professors-in-npr-ed-survey-have-used-trigger-warnings.