Smart kids hate to ask questions

Two things have happened recently

• We had conferences and I had multiple parents tell me students are struggling with HW.
• Yesterday I had time in class for students to ask questions and nobody asked a thing.

Something isn't adding up. Either parents are liars... or students are good at faking it. 

I see it in most math classes I teach, if you don't see it you've got it figured out, or your students are better fakers than mine. Problem is I bang my head against the wall every time I correct a test and think to myself, "Everybody knew this yesterday didn't they?" Turns out they didn't, turns out they don't ask.

I'll let you dive into the why: Fear, laziness, social stigma, procrastination...take your pick, point is they don't ask when they don't know.

So today, the day before a pretty important test, I made every single student ask a math question about the review. No matter if you are the smartest person in the room, you had to ask a question. 

Pros:

• I talked to every kid in my room, rarely do I do that. 
• There was a more even distribution of wealth (my support).
• Whinny kids (yeah I said it) knew my time was sparse and they needed to figure some S out on their own.
• Too cool for school kids had to ask a decent question which means they had to do decent work.
• Too scared for school kids timidly raised their hand and asked a question out of fear that I would dock them 1 million imaginary points if they didn't.

Cons:

• I answered the same question a lot which can be frustrating.
• I way value answering it individually compared to answering it with the whole group, but it is still exhausting
• Smartest kids were under utilized
• As soon as a girl asked me what she should do when she was done and there was 20 minutes left I should have said, "Help people with hands up." Instead I said "Get a job."
• No I really said, "Work on the assignment for tonight." 

Try it for yourself, it started as kind of a whim, hey lets makes these nerds ask some questions, but it really turned into something that was noticeably different in my classroom.

Good Luck