This weekend's reading gave me a lot of insight to classroom discussions that I didn't know were factors of a good discussion. For one, I did not know about the term democratic discussion. This type of discussion is what teachers should strive for to have in their classrooms because all discussion participants will have the opportunity to share their strong views and devote their attention to their peer's words. At first it didn't seem like democratic and discussion go together, but the article makes the good point that those two terms are inseparable because they both strive to nurture and promote human growth. I think that democratic discussion is a great discussion strategy because with collaboration, students will be exposed to different points of view than they normally would have, thus employing human growth. Discussions are also great because they allow students to reach a more informed understanding of a topic, enhance student's self-awareness, foster appreciation for diverse opinions, and they help take informed action about the world. When first getting to this portion of the article, I thought to myself, well of course this is what discussions should do for students, but then as I continued to read on, I realized that a lot of discussions in the secondary classroom are guided by the teacher. A guided discussion is where the teacher asks questions and points of topics that the students start discussing, instead of starting with a topic that is brought up, and a discussion follows based on the students opinions, insights, and experiences. It is true however, that teachers will have to ask follow up questions and point out ideas of interest when the discussion begins to slow down. This is okay as long as the teacher does not take over with questions and control the flow of the discussion. A discussion is best run when students share their ideas and experiences because then the students are learning from one another, and expanding their world view through each other's experiences.
Because of this information, I looked back at my experiences as a student with discussion, and as far as I can remember, I did not participate in a democratic discussion except for my college Harry Potter literature course. I think that every class meeting, we had democratic discussions because the teacher would ask what stuck out to each of us through out the novel, and what were interesting thoughts we wrote about in our reading responses. Based on our answers, she would write a list of topics on the board, and say okay, someone pick one and start a discussion. Because we are college students, we did not have a problem starting the discussion ourselves, but other times, the professor would start with a topic she thought was important and have us discuss it. My Harry Potter class was always democratic discussion because the teacher was an active listener and student. She did not guide the discussion or overthrow someone's ideas. Instead she acted as a student, shared her experiences, and commemorated the students experiences/ideas. She did have to ask follow up questions, but she never guided the discussion for us. Since I was able to experience this type of discussion, I was able to conclude that my high school discussions were not democratic. They had democratic intentions, but more often than not the teacher would guide the discussion. I think it is easier to guide a discussion in high school because the students are more self-conscious, and may not have a big world view, but it is still possible. Teachers should not give up and guide a discussion to force communication. With practice, any classroom can run a democratic discussion.
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