A teacher recently reported to me, when reflecting on the impact of the philosophy sessions I had run with her Year 3 class, that she had noticed how the children had started to answer questions differently. Before, they had replied with short answers, whereas now she’d noticed that they had begun to elaborate more.
An important shift had happened, but not only in the children; the teacher had begun to inhabit a new mindset: she was listening and asking questions differently. The change in the children was simply the impact of a change in her. The first advice I will give to a teacher asking about how to foster good speaking and listening in a classroom is: speak well and listen well. I’ve named the mindset she made a shift towards open question mindset (OQM).
‘Is it…?’
Guess-what’s-in-my-head, or, GWIMH-teaching is a very common psychological
attitude in teachers who test the children’s knowledge through their questioning:
Teacher (T): What’s the capital of France?
Student (S): Is it Paris?
T: That’s right! Well done!
Or: