Most of us have an image of the stereotypically shy student in our mind. A student who is reluctant to speak in class for fear that they might make an error, one who needs to be prompted several times by the teacher before they contribute. Most people are quick to attribute these students’ shy tendencies to their middle school classroom experiences or repetitive lectures by previous teachers that focused on rote memorization rather than meaningful class discussions. What if I were to tell you that discussion-oriented learning, an important aspect of Andover’s teaching style, contributes towards encouraging these students to keep quiet?
Although this learning style promotes discussion focused on the students rather than on the teacher, there remains a crucial issue: the quality of dialogue. In a discussion-based classroom setting, students are often urged to limit their speaking times so that other students can also contribute. This is a good idea in principle but, in reality, causes students enthusiastic about a subject to pick out only the best of what they have to say. We’ve all heard the phrase “quality over quantity” countless times, but what the teachers and curriculum designers don’t account for is how this style of learning actually pans out inside the classroom. The fact that students are ultimately incentivized by grades transforms the classroom into a place where students are left waiting for their turn to be able to present to the teacher.
While I think that discussion-based learning is beneficial in the English classroom, in other settings, such as foreign language classrooms, much is “lost in translation.” Students will often discard sub-par ideas in the middle of a discussion when they anticipate that they will be able to come up with something more substantial to say. And although removing this over-enthusiasm to contribute may be a good thing, in doing so, the system also takes away the courage that some students need to speak in an unfamiliar language and makes them less likely to speak out in class. In its insistence that students must present their ideas well the first time, discussion-oriented learning inadvertently discourages students from making constructive errors in subjects such as French or Spanish.
Students learning new languages need to express themselves without having to worry about the grammatical correctness of their phrases, for it is precisely this method of making mistakes that expedites learning in the long run. This fosters an environment where students meticulously rehearse their words before presenting them to the class. Though we may wish for a system that really does focus on the discussion more than the teacher, the truth is that it is the teacher, rather than the students, who gives out the final grades. Though the original intention of this learning style may have been to engage all students in classroom discussions, it ironically causes some to speak less.
Neil Shen is a Junior from Vancouver, Canada. Contact the author at fshen22@andover.edu
