A silent day - The value of written explanations

On Friday 1 March at Parktown High School for Girls, we wore black and observed a day of absolute silence. This was part of our 21 Days of Activism against rape. Even though the day centered around introspection and awareness, it was still a school day. Teaching, learning and thinking proceeded, albeit in silence. Since so much of what we do as teachers relies on verbal communication, it forced me to think creatively in how I planned and executed my lessons. This blog post is about a lesson that I had with my Grade 8s. The outcome of the lesson was an understanding of how to change mixed numbers to improper fractions and vice versa, write equivalent fractions, and operate on fractions by adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing them. These were all topics that they should have covered in primary school, but which many of them may have not fully mastered. With their basic prior knowledge as my starting point, and armed with a set of instructions on a Keynote presentation, one double-sided white board, a chalk board and two reference textbooks, I embarked on a very different lesson.

The learners were required to organise themselves into three groups, which had to be different to the groups they usually sit with during lessons. They then had to create mind maps on the whiteboards or chalkboard provided. The mind maps were required to contain written explanations and examples for all the topics on fractions that were assigned. The girls also had access to laminated A4 pieces of paper on which they could write erasable messages to one another. It was each group's responsibility to make sure that all of its members understood each topic and were able to complete the textbook exercises assigned.

The girls organised themselves into groups and within a few minutes had assigned one another different roles and topics to add to the mind map. I was encouraged to see such maturity and autonomy from Grade 8 learners. At first some of the groups focused primarily on examples. After a written reminder from me to provide explanations so that all group members could understand, they started to write down procedures and steps. I challenged them to provide deeper explanations when their original ones were inaccurate or vague. By the end of the lesson, each group had provided a comprehensive mind map, complete with written explanations and accompanying examples. Pairs of learners had also broken off from the main groups by this stage and were helping one another work through examples. They were using the laminated pages to write questions and answers to one another.

I feel that this was a very focused and worth while lesson. I observed that learners were engaged and actively thinking, writing and learning in almost every moment. Perhaps the silence forced the girls to think through procedures and explanations. Impulsive shouting out answers or idle chit chat that often occurs during a lesson were curbed. Those who sit quietly and day dream while the teacher talks, the ones who sometimes fall under the radar, had no choice but to be involved.