Engaging young minds meaningfully

HANDS-ON, MINDS-ON LEARNING Indira Vijaysimha explains how teachers can impart knowledge without becoming overly controlling and authoritarian

One of the most frustrating experiences that teachers face in the classroom is not being able to get children to pay attention to what they are saying. Many teachers resort to threat and punishment routines in order to establish their dominance over their children and proceed to teach their lesson to a silent class. This seems to be an effective way to teach and traditionally, trainee teachers have been encouraged to establish control over the children so that they can proceed with their teaching without interruptions. School inspectors, too, have typically appreciated classrooms where the children are sitting quietly in orderly rows and the teacher proceeds with the lesson. The effectiveness of this tradition of teaching has been under question for several decades now, although it is still followed.

Let us take a quick look at the reasons why silencing children by threats and punishment may not be a good teaching strategy. To begin with, it should be rather obvious that just because children are silent in class while the teacher is teaching it doesn’t mean that they are focused on what the teacher is saying. If children are not allowed to speak in class and are supposed to respond only to the questions asked by the teacher, then the teacher has little opportunity to evaluate whether they have actually understood what is being taught. Years of schooling where pupils have to sit silently in class is likely to result in a population of adults who unquestioningly accept authority.

Although such an ‘obedient’ population may seem desirable to some, it has other consequences that should have us deeply worried. Blind obedience to authority is not the preferred end of education.

Education is meant to develop creativity and critical thinking in order to make progress and human flourishing possible. We also see that when some children are coerced into submitting to teachers’ authority they become rebellious and angry. In many cases, such children effectively dropping out of learning by tuning out the teacher, being disruptive in class, playing truant, or by actually dropping out of school itself. In addition to this set of undesirable consequences, research studies indicate that getting children to ‘shut up and listen’ is not an effective way to develop conceptual understanding.

Pointing out to some of the undesirable consequences of classes that require children to sit quietly and listen does not of course, solve the teacher’s problem of having to manage children’s attention. Recent conversations with teachers indicate that the problem of attention may have become worse due to children’s exposure to mobile phones and tablets. The process of getting students’ attention without getting frustrated, shouting or issuing threats is challenging. In fact, a 2014 study reveals that 40% of teachers leave before completing one year of work. One of the top reasons cited for quitting is difficulties in “coping with and responding to student behavioural issues.” What can teachers do to find reasonably satisfying ways to hold children’s attention? How can they get important messages and instruction across without becoming overly controlling and authoritarian?

Build rapport

In order to manage children’s attention, it is helpful to think of the classroom from the child’s view point. A friendly approach will help teachers build a rapport with students and this in turn can enable the teacher to discuss some basic rules about classroom behaviour. Soft conversation between students should be tolerated and there is no need for a teacher to put an end to all forms of student talk in the classroom. However, if on entering a class a teacher finds children talking loudly and being boisterous it is not advisable to try and talk louder than the students. Some other way of drawing the students’ attention can be tried — things like writing or drawing on the blackboard, starting a clapping rhythm, or simply standing quietly and waiting for children to notice them are some ways that teachers have successfully tried.

Have a plan

It is important to have a plan about how to proceed once children’s attention has been gained. After getting the children’s attention, the next step would be to have an engaging activity, game task or story related to the lesson that is to be taught. Sometimes an object or experiment can be used to spark children’s curiosity and they can be encouraged to voice their thoughts and questions. With a little patience, children can be helped to understand that it is preferable to take turns while talking and that it is important to listen to each other.

Social learning theories in psychology indicate that teachers need to model the behaviour that they expect from children. For example, by listening carefully, without interrupting, to what an individual child has to say, the teacher herself models the kind of behaviour that is expected from children.

Sometimes in the interest of proceeding with the lesson, the teacher may have to stop a child from talking about something that is not related to the topic being discussed. Rather than abruptly asking the child to stop talking, the teacher could gently request the child to meet the teacher later to continue that particular conversation. By doing this, the teacher acknowledges the child’s need to communicate but is also being responsible towards the learning needs of other children in the class.

Make it interactive

By making the class interesting and providing plenty of opportunities for children to participate through games, problem solving, experimenting, researching or exploring, teachers can retain children’s attention. If classes are interesting for children, they are more likely to pay attention and listen to the teacher and to each other.

Nowadays, children have easy access to information and knowledge through television and mobile phone. In this scenario, it no longer makes sense for teachers to merely transmit information to children. They need to engage with children’s thinking and help children reason and analyse information. They need to do this in interesting ways or risk losing children’s
interest by boring them.

Teachers too can use technology as aids to make the classroom more interesting. With or without technology, teachers can keep children interested if they make their lessons cognitively challenging by including games, puzzles, case studies or problem-solving.  This actually means that teachers must see themselves as problem posers rather than answer providers. In this age of information overload, teachers should take on the role of getting children to think beyond smartly packaged information capsules. Children need to be helped to see how data or evidence is obtained and encouraged to develop the habit of reasoning and interpretation based on data.

This need not necessarily be a daunting exercise. Simple survey and graphing exercises can form part of lessons. Children can challenge each other’s interpretation of data in so doing develop reasoning skills. They can relate their class work with newspaper or media surveys and think about the evidence presented.

This is just one example of how classroom teaching can be made meaningful and relevant to children. If lessons are interesting, teachers will not have to use coercive methods to make children study. Indeed, children will become eager and excited about their school work and so will the teachers. All this does require planning and preparation on part of the teachers and a genuine interest in the subject that they are teaching.

(The author is with Azim Premji University, Bengaluru)