Gordon Wells in his book “The meaning makers” (1986):
1. At school, utterances by a child to an adult were 63% less than at home
2. Different types of meaning expressed by children dropped 50% (home to school)3. Conversations initiated by children dropped 64% (home to school)
3. The number of questions raised by children dropped by 70% (home to school)
I often hear teachers complaining about the problems they have with children coming to school from dysfunctional families. I have never heard a teacher talk about the problems families have to deal with from their children coming home from dysfunctional schools. Once again the question of ownership of the learning is central.
4 responses so far ↓
Was this a nearly universal constant? I know that the amount of talking that children from lower SES homes have with adults is already significantly less than in higher SES homes.
Also, this is unfair to a certain degree, because at home it’s a much lower child to adult ratio. Of course children are going to talk less to an adult less on an aggregate basis at school. Even if it’s a single-parent household with 5 children, that’s significantly better than 25 kids to 1 teacher. Then many students will be in a household of 3 or less children with 2 parents. Frankly, it’s unsurprising how much less students talk with teachers and initiate conversations simply because the numbers don’t work in their favor.
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Unfair because of the ratio yes…but most teachers still consider themselves to have had a successful “discussion” if they have a ten minute triadic dialogue with their kids (that’s my vocab word of the day) — that would be that back and forth sort of factual q and a.
I guess I am always pondering how to increase the kid talk with such a horrible ratio. Even if I went one-on-one each class with every kid I still would only be able to talk with each one for 90 seconds. Ick…
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I wonder if the stats have changed in the past 22 years? And since NCLB has been instituted (love that word).
Also, I have had several parents complain to me that a dysfunctional teacher/classroom/school has led to problems at home. But these parents seek me (actually they seek the school) out in hopes TPLC will be different.
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