"Guess What I'm Thinking" Questions

I really liked the section of chapter 2 regarding what the author calls "Guess What I'm Thinking" questions. I witness this daily in my placement, and I'm sure you all have to. This is when a teacher says "What is the mood of this story?" Different students give different answers none of which are really considered (they're not dismissed but they're responded to with something like "ok that could work") until that one kid says what the teacher is thinking and the teacher responds with a "correct" or "exactly." That student has a achieved a gold star and every other student who contributed has a small chink in their self efficacy. Stronger, confident students will keep participating while more self conscious students with slowly stop participating. Through this age old practice we are killing not only self efficacy, but also critical thinking and creativity. Steve talked last week about kids not being able to think for themselves, well no shit. Everything we tell them is black or white, yes or no. We dictate everything they do from how they perceive a story to whether they can or cannot go to the bathroom. Like the title of the chapter, the medium is the message. What we do in our class is what they learn. So though they may be picking up things like grammar and characterization they are most definitely learning things like "what the teacher says is right," "I don't need to know this because it's not on the test" and "I need to write correctly so i get a good grade."

This reminds me of the quote by Gardner in the reading as well where he says "As society becomes more concerned with precedent and custom, it comes to care more about how things are done, rather than whether they are done." And this is the message these kids are getting about English. They don't like reading because it consists of books and stories they don't choose at a pace they are not comfortable with. The teacher assigns three chapters for homework, while most of the class does it the smartest kid finishes the book and zones out for the next two weeks and the most challenged reader gets through one chapter and quits. They don't like writing because they don't connect with it. It's meant for research pieces and PSSA. Forgive me if this has just been a ramble. This stuff has just been on my mind and perhaps I drew connections to the text that I just wanted to be there so I could get all this out. Either way though.... thoughts?