Students who challenge your knowledge of content

[bandnerdtx]

Keekum, I'm curious... how do the other students react when she does this? Do they encourage her or get exasperated with her?

[Shanoo]

Originally Posted by keekum

Well, see, she doesn't always directly challenge me with questions. Sometimes her undermining behavior manifests itself as a scoff or a laugh when I say something. For example, today I told my students that a topic sentence is kind of like a turn signal for your writing. "And sometimes," I said, "if you're like me, you put on the turn signal partially to show other people where you're going, and partially to remind yourself where you're going." Cue a snicker/scoff from said student, as well as some whispers to someone nearby. In such cases, I'm hesitant to respond with common discipline consequences (warnings, parent phone calls, detention, etc) for fear that it will betray insecurity on my part and won't really target the root of the problem... "I'll teach you to snicker at me--how about you come for detention?" But I don't want to feel the need to prove myself to her, either. It's kind of a double-edged sword.

Here's an idea I had. Since we're in the middle of a unit on writing, I was thinking of assigning them to write a definition essay on intelligence, using Rumi's "Two Kinds of Intelligence" as a spark. Some people have educated intelligence, and others have more innate intelligence. Sometimes innate intelligence takes the form of wittiness, and other times it's creativity, or analysis, etc. Maybe I'll have them take a multiple intelligences survey or a test to determine if they're more left- or right-brained. In general, my way of dealing with situations like this is to turn it into a lesson somehow. I did something similar with an instance of bullying I encountered a few weeks ago...

In that case, I think I would probably ignore it for the first time or two. After that, I might say something like "Excuse me, but you're being rude. If you have a question or comment please raise your hand and give everyone the opportunity to hear and discuss what you have to say. Otherwise, please be more respectful."

[keekum]

Originally Posted by bandnerdtx

Keekum, I'm curious... how do the other students react when she does this? Do they encourage her or get exasperated with her?

They usually don't react at all. It seems she's kind of in her own boat, here. It's entirely possible that I'm reading too much into this and/or just being paranoid...

[Mamacita]

Students who challenge me and "test" my knowledge of my content area? Those have always been my favorites. Anybody can answer a question; it takes a pretty savvy person to think up good, stump-worthy questions!

I always figured that if a teacher can't answer most questions related to his/her content area, or know where to find such, why is he/she presuming to try to teach it? Kids always know if the teacher "knows." I loved trying to stump my teachers when I was a kid. (Who's surprised?)

Item: Some of them were intelligent and informed, and they KNEW. I gave those educators my utmost attention and respect. I could learn from them. Others were clueless. We ate them alive and spit out the bones.

Cruel? Yes. Thinning the herd? Yup. Fun? Still is.

[JackTrader]

I would base my response to a student who challenges my knowledge on his or her intent. If they're sincere about it, I would respond with something on the line of "That's a great question. I think it merits further study." If there is sufficient time in the lesson, I may even open up the question for others to see if they can add any comments or insight.

Now if the student in question is just trying to score points at your expense and is trying to be smug about it, one way is to turn the tables and invite the student to come up to the front of the classroom and explain it to the rest of the class [if he or she is such a smarty pants and is trying to show off - call them out]. I've done that before as a sub when some student is trying to belittle the sub and 9 times out of 10, they back off.

[Aliceacc]

I kid who is sincere gets a sincere answer, even if it's more than I had planned that day. If time is an issue, I'll give him just a little, and offer to explain more after school if he wants to stop by.

A kid who is trying to prove he's smarter gets a WHOLE LOT of information. The fact is that I know far, far more about the material than he does, and I'll be happy to prove it. So I'll answer the question in incredible depth, ending with " Did that answer your question or should I continue?" He usually backs down at that point. If not, he's invited to come back after school when I can answer it more thoroughly.

In other words, "Game on!" I haven't lost yet.