PROBLEMS OF USING QUESTIONS IN SOLOMON ISLANDS

Language

A major problem in asking questions and getting responses here in Solomon Islands is deciding which language to use. If questions are asked in English students may not have sufficient confidence to reply in English, or may be frightened of making mistakes. Our RTC students will not need to use English much when they leave, so we can encourage them to answer questions in Pijin even if we sometimes ask them in English, or we can conduct all our sessions in Pijin. This will be discussed again later in this unit.

Fear of making mistakes and learning by making mistakes

Many Solomon Islands students are reluctant to reply to questions or talk in class, because they are afraid of making mistakes. This does not just apply to making mistakes in English, but also to making mistakes by giving the ‘wrong’ answer. We have to try to persuade them that making mistakes is an important part of learning. In fact many things cannot be learnt without making mistakes. Imagine learning to ride a bicycle without ever falling off. You would never learn. All kinds of learning – learning a language, learning to understand something or learning a skill – need practice which involves making mistakes. You learn by thinking not just by listening.

We learn more, therefore, by trying to answer a question and getting it wrong than by waiting silently for the teacher’s answer. Thinking out the answer makes our brain active. Our brain is very powerful and miraculous. Once we make it active, it will automatically start to work things out for itself and we will start to ‘understand’. If we just listen to the teacher our brain is not active. We try to remember what the teacher says, rather than trying to understand, but we have seen that memory usually comes from understanding.

We need to explain these ideas to our students to overcome the three common problems of Solomon Islands teaching:

1. Being ashamed to make mistakes.

2. Thinking that you learn more by listening to a teacher than by talking and answering questions.

3. Students not being willing to ask questions when they don’t understand.

Students and teachers often have the “fill-the-bucket” idea of education. Their head is empty and it is the job of the teacher to fill it. The original meaning of education, however, is “to lead out”. No-ones’ head is an empty bucket. We all have skills, knowledge and experiences which we can use in learning new things. It is the job of the teacher, therefore, to “lead out” of the students the skills, knowledge and experiences they already have in them, and to add these to the new ideas the teacher may give them. Learning, therefore, is a two way process, from teacher to student and from student to teacher, not a one way process.

Questions you cannot answer

One reason some teachers do not want to encourage students to ask questions is that they are frightened that a student may ask one they cannot answer.

One African writer said about a teacher; “Enclosed within the four walls (of the classroom) he was the master, aloof, dispensing knowledge to a concentration of faces looking up at him. There, he could avoid being drawn in (to discussion), but out in the fields, outside the walls, he felt insecure (in case they should ask him something he could not answer).”

This man has the “fill-the-bucket” idea of education. If, instead, we think of education as “leading out” what is in the students, then it becomes a dialogue between you and the students, in which they learn from you and you learn from them. In this case, there is nothing wrong with saying you don’t know the answer, as long as you either say you will find out, or you ask them to do so.

If you don’t know an answer, admit it – don’t try to hide it!