Tone and Tenor of Teaching Matters for Inclusive Learning in a Class
by
J.V. Yakhmi
Why is it that some teachers became our role models, whom we remember even decades after our school/college days, even as some other teachers left the least impression on us?
How does a teacher command popularity in the class, spontaneously, without being assertive? A class teacher becomes endearingly successful if he/she does two things: working on the best students to help them seek greater heights of performance; and, working simultaneously on poorly-rated students to help them pass with decent marks.
To make sure that each one of their students succeeds, the best teachers remain approachable to each of their students, and remain so openly. Best teachers give equal and ‘inclusive’ attention to each and every student in the class, irrespective of any inequality that may exist in the comprehension levels of some of the students. Such teachers have patience to work on each student till he/she has understood the topic being taught.
As expected, the best teachers are good at handling the syllabus-based teaching, but what sets them apart is that they use the appropriate tone, too, while addressing the students. This happens when the teacher has a strong desire to create a learning atmosphere in the class. Once a teacher adopts the helpful tone while teaching, the students start developing a feeling of ‘belonging’ to the class of this teacher.
The tone and tenor of the teacher while teaching in a class should neither betray an attempt to coddle the students out of the way, nor assume an aggressive posture to combat imaginary hostilities from a section of the class. I discuss below a few points meant to help a teacher in setting the tone for a successful and ‘inclusive’ learning atmosphere in a class:
1. After taking attendance of the class, don’t straight rush to the syllabus-related item where you left it last. Instead, make an informal query, not related to the syllabus, to put the students at ease and ‘disarm’ them to be communicative and curious before you get back to the teaching of your subject.
2. Never ever attempt to demean the capacity or preparedness of the students in your subject. A teacher has to facilitate learning and not challenge a student who has possibly prepared well. I recall an incidence in 1962 that happened to me during the chemistry practical examinations of my final school-grade. I and another school-mate, both considered the brightest in the class had prepared for weeks to master what is called the ‘salt-analysis’ test, a multi-step bench-top chemistry practical to decipher the formula of an unknown compound, a sample of which is given to the examinee. Any wrong step in the sequence can lead to false results. Before starting the examination, the external examiner announced loudly for the whole class, “Anyone who wishes to dare to attempt the salt-analysis experiment may raise his hand”. I had eye-contact with my above-mentioned classmate and we both decided not to raise our hands, lest our boldness be misconstrued by the aggressive examiner. We rather opted for an alternate simple experiment, which posed not much challenge.
3. Reassure students in your class that it is OK if they cannot reply a question. But then encourage them to learn it, perhaps through discussions with other students in the class, for which let them communicate even while you are present in the class, unless you have asked them to be quiet and attentive during your teachings. After discussions amongst themselves, ask the students to return to you for further clarifications. The late Prof. H.W. Kroto, a chemistry Nobel laureate, who laid the foundations of the twin subjects of nano-science and nanotechnology by discovering the ‘fullerene’ molecule, was candid enough to tell me once that perhaps half of his own learning at university came through interactions with other students. Learning from discussions with peers motivates students to feel less supported and more independent which is the need of the present times. Only a good teacher can make his students achieve this by shaping the environment of his classroom.
4. It is counter-productive for the learning process of the whole class, if you as a teacher make it a habit to ask the students to show hands if they know the answers to the question that you asked. Chances are that each time the same set of a few students would show hands who have been replying your previous questions successfully. They alone would benefit in their learning process. Other students who are either reticent, lethargic, or ignorant of the answers to your questions would never attempt to reply, leading to a widening of the learning inequality among the students. A teacher should pick a student to reply at random from amongst the whole class. Then only all the students would try to exert to be able to reply, making the learning process applicable to the whole class.
5. Making eye contact with your students is essential to hold their attention as you speak in the class. Rather than standing always on the stage or looking at the blackboard/screen as you lecture, it is healthy to, once in a while, move around in the class as you speak That makes you one of them in the class. But as you move in between the student benches, don’t make extra efforts to ‘discover’ any negativities. Instead try to look for any positive signs in the class such as a beautiful handwriting of a student, and give compliments for that.
6. Never dramatize the failure of a student or his low performance/marks, pronouncing your on-the-spot verdict — ‘you’ll never pass’, etc. Similarly, never overtly praise the top-scorer in a class, in order to avoid increasing the already existing inequalities.
7. Grant that some student may be inattentive due to personal problems, viz. family, girl(boy)-friend, money, job expectations, bullying, deprivation, etc. Give them another chance!
8. If you have special children in your ‘inclusive’ class, then let there be Special Educators, who work exclusively to cater to the needs of special children. In view of the stigma attached to the SPECIAL nature of a child, a special educator is meant to form a bridge between the parents and the school-teachers. Therefore, make sure that the special educators are not asked to substitute for subject teachers, or made to run errands for the school principal, etc. The school should facilitate useful interfacing of the special educators with qualified doctors and psychologists so that a good learning atmosphere can be provided to the special children, while handling them with care, empathy and mindfulness.
9. Be generous and appreciative of a positive act by a student, from whom it was least expected. It would inspire the class more than praising a student, from whom it was expected anyway.
10. Learn and develop a flair for effective story-telling, especially if you teach complex topics in your class. All highly successful experts, lawyers, leaders, preachers and teachers are excellent story-tellers. That is how they can influence the masses. During my graduation days, I joined my college a few weeks after the classes had started and was flustered each time my calculus Professor, a Ph.D. in Mathematics, came to teach us. This is because I had missed the initial classes where the concepts of ‘limit’ and ‘derivative’ were taught. To make quick amends I sought an exclusive one-hour sitting with this Professor. He agreed, and told me the essence of all what I had missed in his previous lectures, in a story-like narration with the help of a pen and paper. During this one-hour session, he could pre-empt my disengagement from the subject of calculus.
11. Keep updating yourself, as a teacher. Expect and accept that in the present-day availability of digitalized sources of knowledge, like Google-search, or the recently emerging ChatGPT based on artificial intelligence, some student may have read even beyond the syllabus on a given topic, and may ask pointed questions. Besides, in subjects like Mathematics, there can be several ways of solving a particular problem, and a student may have picked up a methodology different from the one described by the class teacher. That should not irk the teacher or be treated as an attempt by the student to upstage the teacher. Rather, the teacher should welcome it and use it as an opportunity to encourage the whole class to learn new innovative methods of learning.
12. Don’t pre-judge any homework even before having a look at it. I can never forget the indignation that I suffered when the chemistry teacher of my class dismissed a large wall-chart I had made on the applications of chemistry in daily life, by stating, “It looks too good! I am sure you must have got it made from a professional draughtsman, on payment”. What can be more disheartening to a young 15-years old student than such a verdict from his teacher?
