Teacher: "What do you think about...?"
Student: "I don't know." Translation: What do you want me to think?
A recent post by Jason Dyer regarding the findings of Piaget being re- interpreted by James McGarrigle and Margaret Donaldson has me thinking about how often I give off context clues without even thinking about it.
*nodding head, smiling* "Do you understand now?"
*raising hand* "Raise your hand if you get it."
*squinting with furrowed brow, head cocked to the side* "Can you explain how you got that answer?"
And more importantly, how I perpetuate the very thing that I beleive is wrong with education.
They cue in fast...really fast. Mine cue in faster than others 'cause I got the smart ones. But you know what, they don't think better than the others, they just figure out what the teacher wants to hear faster and at a higher accuracy rate. They play "school" better. The ones who are the real thinkers are the smart kids we call lazy. Yeah, that one-- the kid who doesn't turn stuff in or do homework but crushes every test.
I am starting to think it's not his fault. Maybe, just maybe, he's just not interested in me giving him answers to questions he doesn't care to ask.
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1 comment:
Good post. More and more I've been thinking about such cues and how we 'rig' our student responses. I should start practicing some basic responses that I say no matter what they respond.
I think we let our own desire for them to succeed bleed out through our expressions, creating a situation where they can read our face and our tone and navigate their way to the answer like the horse that could do arithmetic.
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