Reflection on Steven C. Reinhart’s
Never Say Anything a Kid Can Say
Jody MacLean
October 29, 2008
Education 521C.10
Sharon McCready
In his article Never Say Anything a Kid Can Say, Steven C. Reinhart describes the gradual transformation of his classroom from teacher-centred to student-centred. In his case, the shift was motivated by poor student performance in spite of carefully planned and well-explained lessons. He began by committing to change a manageable amount of his teaching each year, and through this process came to realize that when he asked his students to do the explaining and demonstrating, they gained much more from the class.
Instead of jumping in to explain and thereby taking the responsibility for thinking away from the students, Reinhart advocates for the use of careful questioning to push students to draw conclusions for themselves, where possible. Of course, this careful questioning doesn’t just miraculously occur. A teacher must plan her questions for each lesson and design them in such a way that they elicit many responses, at least some of which get at the key idea that the teacher is trying to uncover.
Dialogue in the classroom is something that, because of my immersion background, I’ve often needed to consider. In immersion, language development is the primary goal. Students must be given opportunity to speak (as well as read, write and listen) to become fluent in the language. But students with limited linguistic abilities require even more support than “normal” adolescents to speak in class. “Getting middle school students to explain their thinking and become actively involved in classroom discussion can be a challenge,” Reinhart states (478). He then lists a number of suggestions for helping students to develop the confidence to effectively share ideas in class, most of which would already be familiar to teachers: allowing sufficient wait time, being non-judgemental (this brings to mind the Van de Walle neutral face), and not using questions to embarrass a student who is off task.
Of these, I found the suggestions for structuringdialogue such as using the think-pair-share strategy particularly helpful. I had occasion to see a similar technique in action with a group of teachers last week at an inservice that Sandra MacDonald was facilitating. She asked groups to do a small task, a word problem, but she went on to specify that each group would have to explain how they solved the problem. Not only that, but each member of the group must speak. This necessitated some planning and negotiation amongst group members to ensure that everyone in the group knew how to solve the problem, and that no one person said all there was to say. It forced all members of the group to take ownership for the problem and share the discussion time, and because we had time to collaboratively plan what to say, no one was embarrassed or caught off guard without an answer. Every person in the room spoke, and because the task had several possible approaches, all groups listened carefully to the answers generated by others. The structured nature of the activity went a long way toward ensuring the success of the follow-up discussion that was the true purpose of the task.
Students need to be taught this kind of structure. Asking students to speak in class without some guidance as to how to participate as a member of a large group can be disappointing, at best. At worst, it can be chaotic, with some students monopolizing the airtime while others completely shut down and turn their attention elsewhere. I’ve found that when I’ve neglected to do sufficient preparation for the interaction component of the lesson, I’ve been less successful.
The crux of Reinhart’s evolving philosophy of teaching is that he has to step back and allow students to think for themselves. He points out that “when I was in front of the class demonstrating and explaining, I was learning a great deal, but many of my students were not.” (478) By providing students with opportunity to discuss what they are thinking as they learn, they gain not only important mathematical knowledge, but also confidence in their ability to think a problem through to a solution. The key to this more hands off method actually necessitates more preparation on the teacher’s part, as good questions take time to prepare and good discussions need structure to succeed. With these elements in place, however, all learners can become more engaged in the classroom by participating, rather than mutely reading, writing and regurgitating the teacher’s ideas.