Teach Secondary Issue 13.4

Go below the SURFACE The questions students ask us can sometimes betray some deeper, underlying knowledge gaps that we can’t afford to ignore, writes Colin Foster ... O ften, when a student is stuck and asks a question, I think that the question they’re asking is more advanced than the question they should be asking. This isn’t their fault. They’ll typically be asking about a problem they’re experiencing at that moment, which is a perfectly natural thing to do. The teacher’s job is a subtle one. It’s not necessarily always our role to try and answer the question they’re asking us as best as we can. There may be no such thing as a silly question, but there certainly is such a thing as the ‘ wrong ’ question. This is because, often, in order to help a student effectively, we have to press ‘pause’ on the question they’ve actually asked and go back to something earlier – potentially even something muchmore basic, which they may think they already know, but which is actually underpinning the difficulty they’re currently experiencing. Two steps forward Responding in this way can seem strange to them. They might think we’re misunderstanding the difficulty they’re having. They might interrupt us: “No, I already know that – what I’m stuck with is this.” I think it helps to explain howwe’re not failing to listen to them, but are rather trying to dig a bit beneath the surface and come at their question a bit more indirectly. And that we believe this is more likely to address their problem– particularly in the long-term. In this way, by taking a step back, we canmore effectively enable students to take two steps forward. You can see parallels to this in other professional disciplines. If a dentist were to spot some decay near the surface of a tooth, and rapidly ‘drill and fill’ there and then, it will likely lead to present. The deeper problems we must address are likely to be the root causes of many superficial difficulties, meaning that dealing with themhas the potential to kill many birds with one stone. If we can secure those underlying foundations, then we can also ensure that students are less likely to keep coming back to us with more and more little issues. Amid the busyness of a classroom, it can be hard, if not impossible to find the time needed to deal thoroughly with everything “Thedeeperproblemswe must address are likely tobe the root causes ofmany superficial difficulties” generally ‘not smart’ because they fail to grasp things, despite receiving repeated help from their teacher. At a certain point, they may even give up on asking us. If their parents can afford it, perhaps they could get a tutor in to help. But far worse outcomes later on if, in fact, there are deeper problems out of sight, a little further down below. The danger of quick fixes As teachers, we need to similarly drill down and find the deeper underlying causes behind the difficulties our students are experiencing. Failing to do so, in favour of staying with just the surface layer, is unhelpful. If this sounds time consuming to you, then that’s probably because it is – but it’s a process built around future-proofing students’ learning, rather than only obsessing over the we’re presented with. The temptation can therefore be to try and offer quick fixes instead. If that’s all we focus on – helping with those superficial problems presented to us – we’ll often manage to come up with a quick fix of some kind. Yet while the student is quickly satisfied, they’re likely to come unstuck again almost immediately. As soon as they’re on their own, tackling similar questions again, they’ll run into a similar, but slightly different difficulty. And then need our help all over again. Daring to dig This is not only inefficient, but will also have a negative impact on the student’s self-perception, who will likely conclude that: “ I can do it when the teacher does it with me, but I can’t do it on my own ” This common complaint is a reliable indicator that we’re addressing the student’s difficulties at too superficial a level. Or, perhaps the student concludes that they’re simply no good at the relevant subject. For one reason or another, it just doesn’t come naturally to them. Or, they might just think that they’re 68 teachwire.net/secondary