If this were the best of all possible worlds, every student would be eager to learn, be prepared for class and would conduct themselves in a responsible and cooperative manner. While the vast majority of the students in your seminar will be rewarding to work with, inevitably one or two will present you with some problems.
A NOTE ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH
While most people would agree that a classroom should be a place where all viewpoints can be heard, it is not a public forum. As teachers you have the right and the responsibility to set your own ground rules for civility. Freedom of speech does not mean that the sense of community which you and your students work so hard to create can be dismantled by individuals who are unwilling to speak and listen respectfully.
AVOIDING PROBLEMS
Your first year seminar will work far more smoothly if you plan ahead of time how, as teachers, you need to present yourselves. Students are confused by, and often alienated from teachers who vacillate back and forth between acting like a friend and acting like a stern authority figure. Try to strike a balance based on mutual respect. You should make it clear that you both feel the amount of time and effort you are putting in to running the seminar demands their respect. Conversely, being thoughtful in the way you treat your students can often prevent trouble in the first place.
1. Always show students the courtesy of attending to their answers when they offer an idea. If you demonstrate that you are genuinely interested, then you will be able to respond to wrong answers without discouraging your students.
2. If you phrase questions and criticism carefully, focusing on the content of the question, you can generally avoid defensive or hostile responses. Rather than casually dismissing a seemingly ineffectual idea, give the student a chance to clarify the point.
3. On the other hand, don’t respond to student questions with “good point” when the idea was poorly presented. Be honest, but remain mindful of sensitive egos and minimize teasing and sarcasm; they are all too easily misinterpreted.
No matter how careful you are, you may still run into some students who present problems. A few recurring types — and ways to work with them — are discussed next.
THE OVERLY TALKATIVE STUDENT
Overly talkative students can deaden a class. If one student is dominating a discussion, try to elicit responses from other students. Call on someone else, even though the overly talkative student continues to volunteer. Emphasize to the group that it is the quality, not the quantity, of responses that most interests you.
Make sure they see that you consider the group’s work a communal process and a cooperative activity. If the student in question does not recognize the importance of listening to what other members of the group have to offer, talk with him or her about it privately. If the problem continues, seek advice from your program’s administrator. Never ridicule an overly talkative student or make comments to other students in the group. Instead, try as tactfully as possible to keep the group’s activity going.
THE SILENT ONES
Clearly, by now, you understand how important it is in a seminar that all members of the class participate. This can be facilitated by some of the community-building techniques discussed in Part II of this manual. These enable you to make sure the students feel that they are in a supportive environment. In many instances, this will be enough to help the silent student overcome his or her fear of speaking. Such activity-oriented teaching methods as debates and student reports can also make it easier for the shy student to open up.
As with the overly talkative student, do not ridicule the silent student or put him or her on the spot, but do try to elicit answers from him or her at appropriate moments. Try do this initially at least once every session. Later on, when he or she begins to appear more comfortable responding, you can include them more often.
Talking with the student privately can also help. Reasons for being silent may vary. One silent student may merely enjoy listening. Another may feel too “dumb” to contribute. The latter is very common among freshmen. Some students simply have quiet personalities, while others may be undergoing personal stresses that inhibit their speaking in class.
Even after you gently encourage quiet students to speak, they may remain silent. This is their right, and ultimately you must respect their privacy. Written work, in such cases, would be the way that these students show their commitment. Meeting with all your students individually at least once a month can help alleviate both talkativeness and silence by putting students more at ease.
THE ARGUERS
Creating a classroom atmosphere within which your students feel comfortable expressing their opinions and disagreeing with one another — and with you — is a fundamental concern of seminar teaching. However, some students may still be defensive or overly argumentative from time to time.
If a student insists that you are being unfair about a statement he or she has made, point out that you disagree because the evidence does not seem to support the position and offer to talk more about it after class. Remain calm and non-judgmental, no matter how agitated the student gets. Phrase criticism with reference to the material for the session or other commonly shared information from the course.
If a student becomes stubborn, refuses to postpone a disagreement until after class and begins to seriously disrupt the group, you may have to ask the student to leave the classroom, or even cut the class short, but this is a very rare occurrence. Such students must speak with the administrator of your program.