Why do my students think they know stuff? Who told them this? I think I blame happy hippy educators for building self-esteem when they should have been building grammar knowledge.
I gave this speech again last week. and it’s a pretty silly bit of fluff, I’ll admit, but the point is that we don’t know everything, and we need advice. Most people at school got it and responded pretty well.
But I had a girl come up to me afterward and tell me that I should let other people have their opinions. Now this was the point of the speech, and I agreed with her, but I started to wonder afterwards. Why should I let my students have their opinions? Why should I allow them to express themselves in class? Do they have anything worth saying? And furthermore, why do they think they have something to say? Why do they think they know things?
The students seem to enjoy school and my class in particular, but if they do, if they agree that it is good to go to school, isn’t the point of school to teach you things you don’t know? Why then do kids give me their opinions of literature? “It’s boring,” they whine. Or, “I couldn’t relate to it.” Isn’t the entire point of the class that they don’t know how to appreciate good literature? Isn’t that the point of education? By signing up for a class on English, you are implicitly declaring, “I don’t know what to think about literature, and I need help.” Or at least your parents are declaring that.
Education assumes that you don’t understand something, but you want advice. Why are my students confused about this?
Nice title.