Speaking Up
Submitted by Taylor Stoehr (profile)

Strategy: Under traditional classroom conditions, a few bolder students often lock horns over some issue, while everyone else sits back to watch the show. This can be a lot of fun, but it doesn't usually lead anywhere. These debates tend to arise and pass like miniature tornados, all wind and noise one moment, empty silence the next. In a group like ours in CLTL, there will always be a few gifted orators who enjoy a rousing argument in front of an audience, often over very minor differences of opinion. Sometimes there is a compulsive talker who handles his own public anxiety by going into a street-corner mantra, or someone who has had a conversion experience of one kind or another, often in prison, and needs to reassure himself by telling others: "I was a sinner but now I'm saved!"

The challenge to listeners is to hear the call, but it can ring hollow, and the line between authentic self-renewal and ritual self-dramatization is sometimes very thin. In our classes, we hear both the true voice and the false one, sometimes in the same person at different times during the semester. Usually the other students wait respectfully until the orators run out of steam or begin to hear themselves rambling. But when there are three or four such platform speakers in the room, they invariably fall into debating style, and testifying becomes wrangling, each man trying to hold the floor against all comers. A teacher usually has to out shout them all to get back on track. I remember one loud four-way argument, in which no one was listening or trying to find common ground, when, in the midst of his rant, one of the participants abruptly held up his hand like a traffic cop and called himself to a halt: "Why are we yelling at each other like this? It's part of our problem, it's why we have so much trouble in our lives. We don't know how to listen!" I don't remember his exact words - he said it much more eloquently - but his sudden insight brought everyone in the room to a thoughtful silence. Sheepish grins broke out on the faces of the worst offenders.

At the other extreme, there are always a number of painfully shy probationers who sit in the corners or near the door, hoping to survive ten weeks without being called on. They too have their moments of self-discovery, just like the preachers and performers. Of course, most of these tight-lipped students want to join in the conversation and envy the talkers with whom they chat easily enough before and after class. They arrive every night resolved to raise their hands and say something, but the opportunity never seems to arise. Even when a man gets up his nerve, chances are that the topic will shift before he can put in his two cents.

I will never forget one night, the last meeting of the semester, when a forty-year-old recovering alcoholic in the back corner raised his hand. Never before had he had the guts to volunteer a single word in a schoolroom, but our class had finally freed his tongue. Now at last he was breaking his long silence, to announce that he had found his voice! None of us had realized how desperately he had been trying to speak up.

After everyone else had gone home that night, the probation officers and I lingered, marveling at this testimony. But even then it never occurred to me to think about what this event implied for a whole row of other students in the back of the room. The hindrance to speaking up wasn't really located in our students, but in our school-oriented approach to public discourse. But it took me a long time to realize that it would be better to do away with the general "class discussion" altogether, and find some alternative format, in which it would take less courage to offer an opinion.

Even for those students who are not shy, the typical class discussion presents serious logistical problems. As the opportunity to speak moves back and forth, moderated by the instructor, each remark may get people thinking, but the perspective keeps shifting slightly with every new contribution. That can be engrossing for those who are content to sit and listen, but frustrating for the student with a bright idea or counter-argument, who finds that the topic has changed by the time he or she gets a chance to speak. Most people give up, only a few keep waving their hands, to yank the discussion back to where it was five minutes ago. Even the best moderator will have trouble keeping a topic alive long enough to canvass all opinions, usually by virtue of controlling the movement of thought with a constant stream of interpretation and recapitulation.

In recent years there has been a shift toward small group discussions in the colleges, mostly in Freshman English and English as a Second Language classes, stemming from the radical pedagogy of Paulo Freire and his disciples, who regard literacy training as a means to self-empowerment. Paradoxically, in Dorchester we came to our own "small group" strategy by the back door. It was not to get the voiceless people to speak so much as to shut up a few loudmouths. I still remember the moment of decision, in the middle of a Tuesday night class years ago. I was moderating a class of fifteen students, with three probation officers. We happened to have four or five monologists in the class, and they were competing with each other and not letting anyone else say a word. It had been interesting the first few weeks - a talkative class! - but now it was boring and frustrating. The only good effect was that their harangues made others want to talk, but try as I might, I couldn't clear any space for genuine discussion.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I could divide the class into four small groups, with all the vociferous ones off in a corner together. I put a probation officer in each of the other three groups, to spark conversation if necessary, and sat up on the front desk to watch the results. It worked like a charm, and from then on a portion of every class was set aside for small group conversation, varying the mix of students and probation officers each time - and letting the segregated orators work out their own rules for sharing the floor.

Of course small group conversations can be just as digressive or polarized as general discussions, but it makes a huge difference to have the speakers right there next to you, where you can take in other faces at a glance, and make eye contact when you disagree with someone. Issues may shift and the focus may wander, but you feel as if you're getting somewhere when you can keep track of what each one has been saying. Two people can be talking at once, or even three, and you can still make sense of it, whereas in a large group that's just a shouting match. Similarly, if a man sits silent it means something entirely different in a small group than it does in a larger one. His eyes tell you whether he's listening, and he's part of your group no matter what, whereas in a larger body the non-speakers disappear in the background.

In making such comparisons, I do not mean to say that a larger forum has no advantages, but prior spadework in small groups helps general discussion bear fruit. Having once established a reflective mood and conversational rhythms, it's much easier to move to public assembly without being stifled by the more formal situation. Arriving at consensus in a small group means that people have to listen to each other and make compromises. Once issues are framed and positions identified, something is at stake for everyone, and the simple fact that the chairs are still arranged in small circles helps people feel part of a constituency when the larger discussion is reconvened. Somebody from your group is always ready to back you up, and that in turn gives you a place in the larger forum. It's this net of pro-temp allegiances, woven in face-to-face conversation, that we rely on to make "safe" the scary public performance on the high wire.

Once they lose their fear of the spotlight, even our most bashful and inarticulate students sometimes blossom into astonishing eloquence, but the success of our program is not to be measured by its drama, though it makes a good story. We are satisfied with a modest increase in earnestness and self-respect. If you're moving in the right direction, inching forward is better than a risky leap you're not really ready for, even if there is a safety net. Perhaps most important of all, students complete our class having experienced what it is like to participate in a genuine public forum where ideas are treated seriously and everyone has a voice. That's a key step toward being a responsible citizen in a society based on shared experience and mutual support.