A Note on Classroom Participation

I include the following statement in the syllabi for all of my courses.

In-class work is the heart of the course. Students should be present for every session, prepared to participate. I am always curious to know what you are thinking and will call on people who do not volunteer to speak up. I expect to learn from what students have to say and assume that students have a lot to teach each other. Discussion is not a frill, but an essential contribution, without which I would not be able to teach. If I cannot hear how you are working your way through the issues, I will not be able to help you gain understanding. Being physically present will not suffice to earn you all or any of the credits allocated for classroom work. To do so, you must actively contribute to the education of other people in the room, including the professor.

There are many ways for you to support the learning of other students and the instructor. Classes needs people who are quick on the draw and people who prefer to get a sense of how discussion is going before speaking up. They need text-oriented people, with a knack for timely citation, and “historians,” who remember relevant points that came up in sessions last week or last month. They need solid people who are ready to remind everyone of the obvious and off-the-wall people who can shake things up with an unexpected association. They need argumentative, difference-emphasizing people and low-key, conciliatory people. They need dissenters who are not afraid to say things that appear to go against the current, but that express opinions others are too timid to voice.

Classes need help in coming together. People who say “I agree with so-and-so” contribute by putting their ideas into the mix and also by promoting a sense that others are making a difference. “I disagree with so-and-so” may not be quite so welcome, but, when tactfully phrased, it, too, builds a sense that what has been said matters and that the entire class is engaged in a common endeavor.

Students (and teachers, too) should remember that real issues are always complicated and that no one comment from the floor is likely to answer the question. Understanding has to be built step by step, with the requisite detours, a collective process that is best served through cooperation and flexibility rather than an insistence on having the last word. The student who is not sure, but who tries, who wrestles inconclusively with the problem, may surrender the floor with a sense of frustration. But abortive initiatives, unfinished arguments, lines of thought that end in an impasse, are often followed, and not accidentally, by more polished interventions, precisely because later contributors can more readily see what needs to be done to solve the problem. The person who takes a chance and does not fully succeed is often, in the end, the one most responsible when insight eventually emerges.

People who never participate in discussion need to find other ways to contribute to the education of others in the room. In the past, some students who are reluctant to speak up in groups have helped me and, indirectly, other students, by keeping in touch via email with questions and suggestions about the way the course is going. A silent person with a glazed look and lifeless carriage drags down the energy level in the room. On the other hand, every class needs active listeners, people whose listening conveys, via non-verbal as well as verbal cues, a sense of engagement and gives others confidence that they are being heard.

Not to be forgotten are the uses of silence, which provide an occasion to let ideas sink in and to allow unexpected insights to surface. Just because nobody is talking does not mean time is being wasted, not if everyone employs the pause to rethink the issue. Talkative people who know how to respect a silence at moments when silences open spaces for slowly germinating thoughts are also advancing class cohesion.

In short, classroom participation is a requirement in this course, and there are many ways for you to participate.