Why Won't My Students Talk to Each Other?

Earlier this week, I observed two classes, both taught by the same teacher, both sophomore English, both academic track.  The teacher was a recent attendee at a seminar where I had introduced a variation on the Socratic seminar called Socratic Smackdown (MONDAY! MONDAY! MONDAY!)

The first block, which ran from 7:15. until almost 9:00 a.m., was highly engaged, the second block not so much.  Given everything we’ve seen lately about how teenagers need more sleep, these results seem counterintuitive.  If any class should be disengaged, it’s the one that is still asleep.

As a closure activity, their teacher asked for feedback on their discussion, and several students mentioned how awkward the whole ritual felt.  When the teacher asked them to dig deeper into the cause of this awkwardness, one young lady claimed, “We don’t know each other!”

The teacher countered that they had been together for eight weeks, the implication being that they should know each other by now, and the student responded, “Just because we’re in class together doesn’t mean we talk to each other!”

I was immediately transported back to May 1996, the spring of my first year of teaching.  We were discussing Of Mice & Men, and one student made an excellent point to which another student said, “I agree with the boy by the window…”

I was horrified.

“The boy by the window?!  That’s Justin!  You’ve been in class together for eight months!  How do you not know his name?”

The problem is real and, while we didn't create it, it is in our best interests to solve it.   

The Difference Between Regular and Honors

I’ve heard more than a few teachers claim, “I could probably do that with my honors kids, but my regular kids just can’t handle it.”  The implicit assumption here is that honors students, by virtue of their superior intellects or work ethics, are more fitted to academic discourse than their less academically gifted peers.

I’d like to propose an alternative explanation.  Honors students take honors classes, which are fewer in number than the—call it academic, call it regular, call it what you will—middle track.  As a result, honors students tend to be in many more classes with the same people over the course of several years.  They may not like all of their peers, but they know what to expect from them.

By contrast, average students may have a completely new set of peers every period of every day every year, giving them limited opportunity to build relationships.  Consequently, they lack the trust in each other that allows them to share ideas.

In addition, there are very real social barriers that teachers ignore at their own peril. As they get older, student bodies separate according to a series of unwritten and unforgiving laws that dictate where they can and cannot eat lunch, who they can date, whose parties they can be invited to, what extracurricular groups they can join, and how enthusiastically they are allowed to contribute in class.

Unless a teacher has only students from a single social caste in his classroom, he will have to spend some time breaking down the barriers between students before they will collaborate successfully. 

Building Classroom Relationships

For several years, I taught a class for at-risk seniors.  One year, two young men--one was a very Caucasian athlete, the other a very Latino gang member—nearly came to blows a few times during class, convinced that they were mortal enemies.  I initiated a regimen of team building and class building exercises that would enable them to learn a little low-risk information about each other and discover some common ground.  Eventually, they stumbled upon the fact that they both liked girls and getting high.  I’ll grant you, I may have created problems for authority figures elsewhere in the community, but, as far as my class concerned, those two were no longer the source of any behavioral issues (and promised not to get high before or during my class).

If you want students who don’t know each other to work collaboratively, you must first help them break down those social barricades.  Assign them an activity that requires them to find out something about each other.  For example, while you take attendance, ask each student in a small group to speak for 30 seconds on any of the following topics: 

• What did you do last weekend/what are your plans for this weekend?
•  What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done?
• If you had $1,000,000 but only one day to spend it, what would you do?
•  If you could talk to one of your relatives who is no longer here, who would it be and what would you talk about?

There are a number of books with discussion prompts like this.  Ones that leap immediately to mind are The Complete Book of Questions and If  . . . (Questions for the Game of Life),Volumes 1-3 .  There are also quite a few websites that ask people to choose between two unpleasant options, e.g. “Would you rather change your last name to Hitler or give up chocolate for the rest of your life?” 

Realize that not all the material in these resources is necessarily safe for school, so use some judgment.

Other Activities

A Google search using the generic term “class building activities” yielded half a billion hits; there is no shortage of material out there.  I prefer tasks that enable the sharing of personal information over those that merely ask students to complete a physical challenge.  Any activity that requires a significant amount of physical contact or closeness should be viewed with extreme skepticism, but use your own comfort level as a guide.  If you wouldn’t want to participate in the activity, don’t foist it onto your students.

Bottom Line

Do some type of team building or class building activity three times a week—more if your students need it—and you will be amazed at the change that occurs in their willingness to participate and to support each other.  Students may resist initially, so I recommend that you participate in these activities and share information about yourself.  You are part of the team, and they need to know they can trust you as much as they trust each other.

Some Possibly Uncomfortable Truths About Cooperative Learning

Last week, I conferred with a new teacher who was struggling to manage the behavior of her class of fourth graders.  For a variety of reasons, these children have not yet developed the ability to self-regulate, so, when released from direct instruction, their immediate impulse is to flee from the assigned task to anything else.  This impulse was aided by the fact that the teacher had placed their desks in clusters of five.

When I suggested that cooperative groups might not be the most productive arrangement for her students, she looked shocked—for about a second—then audibly exhaled and said, “Thank you!”

For some time now, teachers have been served a pretty steady diet of cooperative learning Kool-aid, and I feel it necessary to clear up some misconceptions.  Lest anyone think I’m simply a curmudgeon with a fetish for desks in rows, let the record state that, for five years, I served as a trainer in Kagan-style cooperative learning for my school district.  I believe in the value of effective cooperative grouping.  The operative word being “effective.”

Truth #1: Sitting together does not necessarily lead to working together.   In my observations, the most common scenario I witness is the teacher’s request that students “work together to finish this problem/ worksheet/ paragraph/ etc.  In most classrooms, what happens next is that a high-achieving, grades-oriented student in each group takes over the task.  I was this child (I am this adult).  This student will not risk allowing others to contribute, and those others are more than happy to surrender to the grade-grubber’s superior will.  In the absence of a high-achieving, grades-oriented group member, students will engage in a dizzying number of stall tactics that may include but are not limited to sharpening pencils, flipping pages randomly and/or accidentally dropping the book several times, asking to go the bathroom, requesting clarification of the task (this after 10 or 15 minutes have elapsed), and conversing on topics of greater personal relevance, interest, and facility.

Truth #2: Just because students are engaged does not mean they are learning.  That said, it is important to recognize that when students are not engaged, they’re definitely not learning.  However, teachers must consider whether and how collaboration contributes to learning goals.  Often the answer is “not at all.”  Students may enjoy the opportunity to talk to each other while working, but unless this talk is focused on building content knowledge or skill it is not helping them academically.  Yes, yes! Some students need to build social skills, but simply placing four kids in a group will not make that happen any more than placing four cats in a bag will.  My experience is that the students who most need help with social skills either shut down or become hostile when forced to work together.  Most groups—whether children or adults—require a protocol of some kind to enable them to distribute responsibilities equally.

Truth #3: The “real world” analogy we keep using to justify group projects is completely specious.  My significant other is the director of a team of software engineers. 

•  His team is made up of individuals hired specifically for their skill in writing code. 
• The team knows he is in charge.  He has more experience and holds institutional authority over them.  As their director, he can request status reports to keep track of how the work is progressing, reprimand any team member whose work is lackluster, and recommend the firing of team members who consistently fail to perform. 
•  Tasks are assigned to take advantage of team members’ strengths.  If they want to shore up their weaknesses, they do so on their own time.
•  In the end, the only thing that matters is that the product is completed on time and according to client specifications.   

Contrast those givens with the typical school project group.

·         Because the material is new, by definition, no one is an expert. 

·         Likewise, no one in in charge.  Even groups that are assigned a team captain succumb to the realities of adolescent social dynamics.

·         The goal of school activities is to help students get better at what they do not already know how to do.  If the activities tap only students’ strengths, they will not lead to learning. 

·         The learning process should be more important than the product. 

Now, I realize it is a poor leader who tears ideas down without providing alternatives.  But it's Friday, and I'm tired.  I’ll get to that in my next post.

Remember to breathe in and out (repeat as necessary),

Dr. Deb