If you have taught longer than a day, you've had this experience. I had it this week. A student commented on something in our schedule (we have lunches differently this year than we have in th past), so I spent a minute explaining why we had made that change. At the end of my explanation, she said, "Why did we change the length of lunch this year?" I said, "I just explained it . . . to you. Specifically, I was explaining to you." She didn't even notice that I had been talking, much less that I had been addressing her.
In this case, it didn't matter much because the reason for the schedule change isn't particularly important. But, we all know that this happens with other things too. You can spend ten minutes going through a lengthy explanation of a complex topic, only to have a student raise their hand and ask you about the thing you had just been talking about as though it was brand new. I have sometimes turned to the nearest child to me and said, "When I talk, words come out, right?" When they confirm that words did indeed come out, I say, "Are they in English?"
You'd be tempted to think students just don't pay attention to anything, but then you have experiences that make you realize that is a wrong assumption as well. They'll ask you about something you were wearing three days ago or ask about your cat. I overheard this piece of a conversation between two 8th-grade boys a couple of weeks ago. One said, "I don't think she ever sits down. I've never seen her sit." The other replied, "There was that one time during a test." So they are observant about what I'm doing perhaps more than what I've said.
I guess the trick is to harness the power of their observation skills and figure out how to get them to observe content-related things. If you figure it out, let me know. I'll let you know if I do.
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