Chapter Seven Summary

Teaching with Your Mouth Shut, by Donald L. Finkel

Chapter 7

Significant Points in the Chapter

When learning to Teach with Your Mouth Shut, the difference between power and authority are crucial to distinguish, both for the teacher and the student. There will be times the teacher needs to refuse to meet some of the learners’ expectations; “good teaching involves a teacher in a multitude of refusals, often on a daily basis” (p. 132). However, this does not mean the instructor is giving up his/her authority. Separating power from authority is at the heart of teaching without telling. Within this distinction, the development of a democratic environment can be created.

When the Teacher Refuses to Teach:

          When creating an environment of independent groups of learners, discussions, responses, and ideas are exchanged. However, inevitably there comes a time when the conversation will stall. Naturally, the students are going to turn to the teacher for directions.This is the time the teacher needs to refuse to lead.

          There are three reasons why the teacher needs to resist leading. First, is it important for the students to have a place where they have autonomy over their questions. Second, the group needs to learn how to inquire without being dependant on the instructor’s interpretations and opinions. Third, students will earn to respond and sustain inquiry on “their own terms” and develop “an authoritative voice of their own” (p. 115). When the instructor forces the learners to struggle, they are assisting them in learning to govern themselves.

          When students govern themselves, the classroom becomes democratic. Students start to trust their own authority to uncover the truth through individual and collective inquiry. This is based on mutual respect and faith in the members of the society. The teacher is also contributing to a democratic society because her/she is teaching students a sense of responsibility to participate to the “whole”.

          An instructor cannot simply tell students these important democratic characteristics; “character develops in response to an environment” (p. 116). Shaping character is best achieved by structuring the environment. An example by Dr. Ford is provided to illustrate a possible method for teachers to use when creating student-led inquiry. Under his tutelage, Dr. Ford gave his students:

·         One limit

·         One central constraint

·         One general orientation

·         One minimal promise of support

·         A sense of importance to their task

He acknowledges that students will flounder but insists that the teachers must resist the urge to take over because, “the only real education system for democracy is democracy” (p. 118).

          Creating the path for self-sufficiency does not include making obstacles. Teachers should let the students know what he/she is trying to foster. They should be made aware that their tendency to be dependent is “virtually universal and usually unconscious” (p. 119). The transference from a parental figure to a teacher, or other authority figure, is usually deeply rooted and hard to break. Students have to learn how to pull themselves away from the teacher for a democratic group to emerge.

          It is easy to confuse power with authority. Power is “the ability to make things happen” (p. 121). Authority “is that which justifies or makes legitimate a particular arrangement or set of affairs” (p. 121). Learners need to be able to take power into their own hands and still respect the authority of the institution. However, this does not imply that the teacher relinquishes all of his/her power to the students. “A teacher can hand over the power to determine what goes on in the classroom without handing over his power over what happens in the course as a whole” (p. 123). Sometimes the teacher will need to make these distinctions clear to the student, particularly by pointing out specific behaviors as they manifest in the classroom. When these exchanges occur, it can be “socially awkward” because the teacher is not helping the traditional sense the student expect. Therefore, the teacher needs to be prepared for this role.

A Continuum of Democratic Teaching Practices

          Conceptual workshops promote behaviors that reinforce a democratic classroom, especially if the room is arrange so the focus remains on the students and group work. In addition, student participation in conceptual workshops will help prepare them for open-ended seminars. The example of A. S. Summerhill School is provided to support this claim. Besides conceptual workshops and open-ended seminars, self-reflective groups promote democracy: “the “self” in “self-reflective groups” refers to the group’s collective “self” (p. 130). In this structure, students learned about group behavior by studying the behavior of their own group. This method adds a political, anthropological, and psychological dimension to the democratic classroom. From it, students can learn to observe, hear, and recognize behaviors, which can gradually help the group transform.  

Finkel, D. L. (2000). Teaching with your mouth shut. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.