What Does Liz Kleinrock Say Makes a Topic Taboo?

On TED Talks Daily, teacher Liz Kleinrock says she never received an official list of forbidden subjects. What she heard growing up was that two things stay off the table at family gatherings: religion and politics. She found that strange, because those are forces that shape identity and belief. A topic becomes taboo, she says, when discomfort rises as soon as it enters the conversation. Some people are fluent in the language of equity, and others fear being shamed or exposed as ignorant the moment they speak. She argues that schools, including her own fourth-grade class, are often the only place students can ask those questions and be wrong out loud.