I was recently in an argument on Twitter. (I know better than to engage because that way madness lies, but I do have some rules to keep me from going too far in.) Anyway, this how it went. Someone had posted that she had students who would say "I don't understand" as soon as she started something because they had learned that was a way to divert doing work. They could go home to their parents and say, "I told her I didn't understand," and they would blame her for going too fast or not teaching well when they had checked out during class before she even got started.
I replied to her, telling her that while it wasn't the same situation, I did once ban a student from using the sentence, "I don't get it." For him, it wasn't a shirking of responsibility; it was just a verbal habit. It was almost a tic. We would be in the middle of the first example of something, and he would say, "I don't get it." I would say, "Well, of course, you don't; we haven't done it yet." After a couple of months of this, I had a meeting with his mom. I told her that while he was allowed to ask specific questions, he wasn't allowed to say that vague sentence. He could say, "You lost me at step two" or "Why did you divide by one half," but he had to be specific. She was fine with it, even said, "Yeah, he does that at home too."
Of course, on Twitter, people assume that because they have read one tweet from you, they have learned all they need to know about you in those 280 characters, so I got this reply.
She paid no attention to the fact that I said I did this after a few months, not in the first week of school. She assumed he wasn't interested in math although he eventually pursued a STEM career. And, she ignored that I had already addressed the fact that he did well. So, he was fine with it, and his mom was fine with it, but the Twitter lady wasn't fine with it. I have a two-tweet rule before I mute the conversation (keeps me from saying things I shouldn't when the conversations get heated), so I replied to her that in my 24 years of teaching, I had done this exactly once and since I taught him for three more years, I knew I had not done any damage by asking him to be specific.
While "easier for you though" was the infuriating part of that tweet because it actually would have been far easier to let him continue with this habit rather than teaching him to identify his issues and communicate clearly, I think it was the "You'll find" that amused me most. I have taught over 2500 students, and this read like I was new to the profession (which might be understandable if I didn't have 24 years in my bio).
Since I am pretty strict about my two-tweet rule and have regretted every time I have ever broken it, I muted this conversation and didn't reply. I have no idea where the conversation has gone since then. If I didn't have this rule, perhaps I would have told her that while I appreciated that she was trying to stand up for students, she was also massively underestimating them. They can be taught to identify where they get lost. They can be taught to clearly communicate. And, when there is a reasonable relationship between student, parent, and teacher, and the rationale has been explained, this kind of thing doesn't shut down communication. If anything, when I taught him chemistry the following year, he learned it much better because he knew how to ask what he need to know.
Adults have a habit of underestimating kids (or overestimating them as I'll address in a minute). We sometimes assume that they are helpless. She assumed that he couldn't be taught to identify and communicate his need. I had a parent insist her child couldn't understand sarcasm when she was in the 8th grade, but the child had no trouble both understanding and using it in class. I have three quizzes for which I count spelling (due to element names being similar). A parent told me that there was no way her son could spell the names of the elements correctly (a conversation I was unsure why we were having since I had already said I wouldn't count spelling for students with accommodations). Then, when I graded his quizzes, he spelled them all perfectly anyway, even after knowing it wouldn't count against him if he didn't. Kids are capable of more than we think. They can know that one teacher strictly adheres to some procedure while another teacher doesn't. They can submit things on time if we hold them accountable to it. They can think deeply when asked good questions and supported with feedback. We are there to teach them how to do the things they currently don't know how to do, so when people assume they can't, I get defensive on their behalf.
We also sometimes overestimate students. We assume they can teach themselves with no guidance. I think the constructivist/inquiry/discovery fad is fading. I hope it is because research shows it doesn't work, but I fear it is because, like all fads, it just lost popularity for a while and will be back with a different name. Kids cannot teach themselves. We cannot simply be facilitators. We must use our professional judgment to decide whether to teach a topic with direct instruction or a research task or providing an experience that we then spend a lot of time reflecting on to draw out what they were meant to learn from it. We cannot simply put them in the lab and ask them what they observe and what they wonder about it, at least not at the middle and high school level, where what they observe doesn't lead directly to its cause and what they wonder will only lead to a surface understanding. They are capable of deep thought, but we must lead them down the path toward that thought.
The phrase "age-appropriate" doesn't get used much anymore, but it should. When you see products that claim to teach your two-year-old to read, the simplest way to respond would be to know that isn't age-appropriate because they don't have those symbolic skills yet. When I worked in daycare, and there was a child in the three-year-old room who still slept with a pacifier, it was easy to know that wasn't appropriate at that age because he was beyond the sucking instinct. When a person tells you a high school-aged student isn't capable of identifying their confusion, we should know that a person who is a year away from obtaining a drivers' license is capable of being taught that. While their brains aren't fully formed until their early twenties, they have mush in their heads until the age of 24 at which time they wake up fully developed. It's developing, and it's our job to know what is appropriate, meet them where they are, and guide them to where they should be.
No wonder we are so tired.
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