PLN #16

For my sixteenth PLN I read an article called "Quiet Student" that I found on Kristen's blog. The article mainly talked about how and English teacher doesn't really know how to handle students that are quiet during her Socratic seminars. This is what I had to say about it.

My Comment:

I think you make some very interesting points about both sides of the situation, and being a high school student myself I understand what it is like to participate in a Socratic seminar in class. Whenever my teacher’s do decide to hold a Socratic seminar I usually try to participate and contribute to the conversation as much as I can. There are however, as you mentioned always some students that for whatever reason choose not to participate. I don’t think it’s because they’re bad students or don’t have an opinion on the subject. It is more likely that they’re just shy or timid about sharing their opinions. I think what you are doing right now is probably the right thing to do and the easiest way to make sure your students are understanding what you’re talking about in class without having to force them to participate or embarrass them. I would however maybe talk to them privately or before class about why they’re not participating and set a goal for them to maybe talk two or three times in order to break them out of their shyness because in most jobs they’ll eventually have to speak up publicly and speak in front of other people and what better place to practice it but in front of their classmates in high school.