How I've changed as a teacher: talking less

• Original post at Darryl Anderson
• Posted at 10:44 am on Thu, Jan 12, 2012

This past Monday morning was the first day of the semester and as expected my Grade 9 students were unfocused and talkative. It was the beginning of a new unit on Natural Disasters and as usual, I like to begin with a Preview Guide full of trivia questions or "identify-what's happening-in-the-photo" questions. The students enjoyed the trivia pre-quiz but it was hard to keep them quiet. They just had to discuss their answers with each other. My co-teacher was sitting in on the class since he was going to deliver the same lesson the next day and wanted to see how it worked. At one point in the quiz I commented to him: "wow, the kids are more talkative than usual today." He responded: "I know, this is crazy. My kids are always so quiet. They're angels compared to these guys. They just sit there and listen."

At first I felt defensive that I appeared to be a teacher who couldn't keep control of his students. But after the lesson I reflected on it and was glad that my students were so talkative. They couldn't help but share their ideas with each other. The quiz doesn't count for a grade, so who am I to tell them to keep quiet and work on this individually? Isn't the job of the teacher to ask questions rather than answer all the questions? If I sat in on his class with his quiet, passive students, would there be more or less evidence of learning than my talkative, actively engaged students? I remember in one of my masters courses an adage that says "a teacher should be more like a guide on the side, rather than a sage on the stage." In the past few years this has really sunk in and rather than just lecture my students and answer their questions, I try to prompt their enthusiasm by asking them questions, showing them intriguing photos and videos, and giving them trivia quizzes on the first day back from break.

It's easy to fall back into the pattern of lecturing and reading chapters from the textbook, especially in a content-heavy subject like Humanities. I think some teachers gravitate towards History and Geography because they enjoy sharing their endless knowledge of facts and anecdotes about the world. Of course there is a place for that in Humanities class and some students enjoy hearing their teacher tell stories about their travel experiences around the world. But sometimes I think it takes more of an effort to get off the stage and let the students have an unstructured discussion about what the teacher has presented them with.
Darryl Anderson
MYP Humanities