Weekly Question: How do we bring our students’ voices into the classroom?

 Essential Question: How do we find and feature all students’ competence?

When thinking about this week's question and readings, the first thing that comes to mind is simply to be a nice person. I'll admit that this is sometimes much harder than it seems. But, at the end of the day, one of the most important parts of being a good teacher is to value every part of your students and to always meet them where they are. Take the "whisperers" for example, from Houssart (2001). These students, the "whisperers," had been labeled as "below average" and stuffed away onto the low track of mathematics. For the teacher, this turned into drill-like lessons with little room for creativity, discussion, or curiosity. The "whisperers" took this into their own hands, often responding via whisper to the lessons with creative responses, curiosities, and other general comments about the lessons. The article continues on to describe how the whisperers continued to be unsuccessful in the eyes of the assessments they were given. But I cannot help but imagine how they would have done if their teacher had stopped to acknowledge more of their contributions -- most of which were mathematically relevant, insightful, and telling about their curiosities about mathematics, also known as great ways to help them feel more included in the math classroom and more excited about learning. I cannot help but think how clear it was that they weren't really struggling with the mathematics itself, they instead needed help with reading comprehension and written work. They were more than capable of answering the questions out loud. They had an immense mathematical curiosity that was being stifled by the class format.

But then again, I wonder about the opposite. If the teacher had done a 180 in order to accommodate the interests of the whisperers, how would the other students fair? In general, it seemed that this classroom was not employing many successful techniques, so I imagine many changes would still be beneficial, but what if some of them were harmful for the other students? It is a good reminder that balance and flexibility is always paramount. Not even necessarily just in the classroom, but in life. Routines are good, but we always need to change it up once in a while, and we always need to reevaluate our routines every so often to ensure they are still the best way to serve ourselves and others. Hopefully, keeping that piece in mind will help me to serve all of the students that find their way into my classroom.

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I really liked that note to end this post, but I wanted to talk a bit about the other reading this week as well. Chapin, O'Connor, & Anderson (2009) addressed the ways that we talk in the classroom and its effect on student learning. This combined with a reading from Practicum (Reinhart's (2000) "Never Say Anything a Kid Can Say") brought me great insights on vocal balance in the classroom. I'm not sure that never say anything a kid can say is the best way forward because, once again, we're about balance here. It would be absolutely exhausting and impractical to only let it come from a student's mouth at every waking moment. But as a general goal to strive for, I think it has great power. Students are learning and making discoveries, and the more they are able to explain new things to themselves and their peers, the more real and ingrained it can become. I especially loved the Chapin et. al. strategies around revoicing and repeating. Only hearing a concept or explanation once and in one way is unlikely to reach all 20, 30+ individual humans with individual learning styles in the same way. Having it repeated in a new, possibly clearer or more concise way, helps the whole class take something new from the same observation, and what a great thing that can be!