Into the Driver's Seat

Hola: Una infografía sobre el proceso socrático. Un saludo

When teachers try to untangle this cognitive mess, they sacrifice personalization for efficiency. There are simply too many students, and too much content to cover, so they cut to the chase.

Which means then tend towards the universal over the individual–broad, sweeping questions intermingling with sharper, more concise questions that hopefully shed some light and cause some curiosity. In a class of 30 with an aggressively-paced curriculum map and the expectation that every student master the content regardless of background knowledge, literacy level, or interest in the material, this is the best most teachers can do.

This only a bottleneck, though, when the teacher asks the questions. When the student asks the question, the pattern is reversed. The individual student has little regard for the welfare of the class, especially when they’re forming questions. They’re on the clock to say something, anything. Which is great, because questions–when they’re authentic–are automatically personal because they came up with them. They’re not tricks, or guess-what-the-teacher’s-thinking.

A student couldn’t possibly capture the scale of confusion or curiosity of 30 other people; instead, they survey their own thinking, spot both gaps and fascinations, and form a question. This is the spring-loading of a Venus flytrap. The topic crawls around in the mind of the student innocently enough, and when the time is right–and the student is confident–the flower snaps shut. Once a student starts asking questions, that magic of learning can begin.

And the best part for a teacher? Questions reveal far more than answers ever might.