Zoë Knoller encourages students to talk to each other about sensitive topics

The five students prepared several lessons showing their counterparts how to talk about sensitive topics including the LGBTQAI+ community, discrimination, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They developed the classes alongside Nadezda Broshuis, a teacher at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences and a founder of a project called Discussing Sensitive Issues in the Classroom.

The five students come from different backgrounds. Zoë Knoller is Israeli-Dutch, Kawther Ebrahim is Palestinian-Dutch,  Ishana Karselan is Surinamese-Dutch, and Loubna el Kabch and Jouwairiya Soulimani are Moroccan-Dutch. They all study at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences (HU), except Knoller, who is a first-year Psychology student at UU.

Despite their different nationalities, beliefs and worldviews, the students are close friends who can talk about sensitive topics, so they want to teach other students to do the same. The workshops will start being offered in February onwards at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, but UU students are welcome too. The idea is to offer these workshops in other higher education institutions as well.

The students presented their project at a conference in Seville. Photo: courtesy of the students

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The workshops are part of the Discussing Sensitive Issues in the Classroom project, whose aim is to make thorny subjects discussable in a safe way for teachers and students. Broshuis started this project following the beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty in 2020.

Zoë is concerned about polarisation in society. "Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have been on the rise for a long time and only got worse after 7 October 2023. The riots in Amsterdam were a hard blow for me."

"Political parties and social media users had such a violent reaction to this event. It's not easy to see that people are pigeonholed like that. It's not easy to see some people feel that you have to single out a person or a whole group of people as good or evil. That worries me."

Concern for her family 
Zoe and Kawther, who is Palestinian, know from experience that debates about thorny subjects don't have to be tense. They already knew each other before they started working on the workshops. They became friends after a dialogue event about the war in Gaza, held in November 2023. 

Zoë and Kawther think about the conflict all the time as Zoë's family members live in Israel and Kawther has relatives living in the Palestinian territories. "It was difficult to hear the other person's pain while being in pain yourself," says Zoë.

"Eventually, the conversation turned to how our family members were doing and who we were worried about. That's when we were able to hold each other. We felt the same despite our differences."

They decide to meet more often to talk about the war and support each other. "We found out we had many things in common. Hebrew and Arabic have similar words, for example. We also talked about our families, who told us about the same events. We could laugh about ordinary things, as in any friendship."

"It helps to realise you don't know everything. We realised we were getting different versions of the same events because we'd get completely different information from the Palestinian and Israeli media. So, it doesn't come as a surprise that we'd think differently about certain situations. However, our underlying values are the same, which allows us to talk about it."

HU teacher Nadezda Broshuis. Photo: courtesy of the teacher

Workshop
After the dialogue event, Zoë and Kawther were asked if they would like to work with the HU teacher on the Discussing Sensitive Issues in the Classroom project. 

They put the workshops together alongside the three other students. Though the dialogue itself will not be conducted, students will be given the tools to have a difficult conversation. Zoë hopes that students who attend the workshops will apply the lessons in their daily lives and pass them on to others.

In the first workshop, students are made aware of their own opinions and the diversity in the group. The second workshop explores differences and similarities in the group. Students try to engage with each other without judging or debating. The third workshop discusses what makes a topic sensitive, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or student stress. The fourth, and final workshop, is about strategies. Students are taught how to control their emotions when shown a video about a controversial topic.

From left to right: Zoë, Jouwairiya and Kawther. Photo: courtesy of the students

Agreements 
Several conditions must be met for people to address a sensitive topic, says Zoë. Students must be aware of their perspectives."In our workshops, students are encouraged to think about why they have a certain opinion, what experiences this opinion may stem from, and how they feel about it. We want people to open up so that they can also acknowledge other people's perspectives. You should not start a conversation with someone if you are not ready for it."

In addition, workshop participants are invited to think about how society influences their opinions. "We play a game to explore what position someone has in society. We try to visualise that. For example, are you a man and highly educated? That way, we want to show the differences and similarities in a group."

"When having a dialogue, it is important to see not only the differences but also the similarities. This can also be done in a very light-hearted and superficial way: are you a dog or cat person? What are your hobbies? We should see that someone is more than just an opinion."

Listening 
"A dialogue is different from a discussion. Our message is you can have an opinion and it does not have to change. It's about respecting the person in front of you and acknowledging that there are other opinions too."

According to the students, being a good listener means focusing entirely "on the act of listening, which means you are not only concerned with your own perspective". There are several strategies to achieve that. Students start by watching a video about a controversial topic that can evoke different emotions in people.

"We ask students what they feel, think and think. Then they are instructed to park their opinions for a while, ask the same questions to the other person and be curious about those answers."

Zoë dares to engage in thorny conversations more often because she participates in the project. "Many people have prejudices about me because of my Israeli background. They associate me with the Israeli government and assume I am on a certain side. I used to have a lot of trouble with that. I had to learn to talk to people about this. Now I dare to do that."