Like so many conversations when two people are
equally interested in talking
to one another, this one
covers a lot of ground, and
there are several invitations
for further inquiry and
thought. Instead of using
the quiz model captured in
the previous example, the
teacher uses the exchange
to broaden Colm’s horizons
by linking his own reactions to literature about
human fear of snakes. Colm
gets access to a body of literature he might not know
about, and he learns that
people can connect their
own immediate experience
to the lives of other people
through books. This spontaneous exchange about a
snake skin provides hefty
academic lessons.
Making Time
Needless to say, teachers don’t have
the chance to pursue every conversation, and not every conversation
leads to such valuable inquiry.
However, it’s worth considering
how to structure a classroom so that
there are more opportunities for such
inquiry to emerge.
Too often, in their eagerness to get
through the material they’ve planned,
teachers don’t allow themselves and
their students to talk informally.
One thing teachers can do is allow
more time for each activity and each
transition. Children who don’t have
to rush through snack time or who
can dawdle while standing in line are
more likely to use the time to begin a
conversation.
Another small change that makes a
big difference is to allow children to
deviate from a task when the conver-
sation seems interesting. For instance,
while the teacher is helping a child
solve math problems or write some-
thing, the child might bring up an
ancillary topic that provides as much
or more educational value as finishing
the math or the page of writing.
Finally, teachers can bring up
interesting topics with small groups
of children without any clear aim
or pressure to “cover” material, but
simply with the goal of a satisfying
conversation.
As I said earlier, researchers have
long known that one of the primary
reasons middle-class children tend to
do better than low-income children in
school is because of their experiences
with language at home. This finding
extends to a wide range of informal
learning experiences that middle-class
children commonly have access to.
Why not spend more time in school
offering similarly rich informal
learning experiences and conversa-
tions to all students? Such conversa-
tions, however unplanned and
wandering, contain many questions
that are the sine qua non of real
learning. Even in school, nothing beats
a good conversation. EL
References
Engel, S. (2015). The hungry mind: The
origins of curiosity in childhood. Cam-
bridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful
differences in the everyday experience of
young American children. Baltimore, MD:
Paul H. Brookes.
Tizard, B., & Hughes, M. (2008). Young
children learning. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Wells, G. (1986). The meaning makers:
Children learning language and using
language to learn. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Susan Engel ( sengel@williams.edu)
is senior lecturer in psychology at
Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts. Her books include The
End of the Rainbow: How Educating
for Happiness—Not Money—Would
Transform Our Schools (The New Press,
2015) and The Hungry Mind: The Origins
of Curiosity in Childhood (Harvard Educational Press, 2015).
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