Like the teacher can often ask the most obvious question with a very clear answer they gave 10 seconds ago and when he asks the class, no one will say anything. I get maybe 3 opportunities to answer before I have to stay silent so someone else can answer maybe after 10 minutes of awkward silence.
Why do people do this? Don’t they find it annoying class constantly being brought to a halt?
Comments
Some possibilities, depending on the situation:
They think they’ll look uncool/like a tryhard if they answer when no one else is
They don’t know the answer and don’t want to look dumb
They are not paying attention and don’t know what the question was
They enjoy watching the teacher feel awkward
Many are used to just sitting there and being lectured at without paying any attention.
They don’t want the mental load and responsibility of following the class and answering questions.
Some think it is uncool to answer.
Some are just dumb.
Some don’t care about the class and would rather sleep or do something else.
If they don’t want to step up then I will rarely force them. It might be my job to teach but it’s their job to learn.
I can tell you as someone who was always quiet in class, it is obvious to us when class grinds to a halt, I just didn’t care enough for it to break the social anxiety of a teenager. Outside of my group of friends, I just cared about getting passing grades and paid very little attention to what was actually going on day-to-day
No one wants to be on the spotlight.
People don’t like being the center of attention or on the spot.
It’s basically tall poppy syndrome. You don’t want to stand out for acting like you know more than others.
Honestly though, asking questions that have super obvious answers won’t get much of a response. But if you give students a chance to share and debates ideas, there’s usually pretty good discussion. In my experience.
They’re afraid of looking stupid if they’re wrong.
They don’t want to separate themselves from the herd/crowd and stand out just in case they get picked on by the bullies, that’s what happens in schools, and they retain that habit even when they get to university.
It continues into higher education levels as well. I suspect a mixture of not knowing and not wanting to be wrong, and in mixed learning situations giving the younger years a shot before stepping in. The teachers are counting on someone eventually breaking the silence.
Not everyone likes the classes attention, and sometimes we aren’t sure if the answer we think say is the the correct one, which adds a layer of fear about being teased for being wrong.
The students that don’t answer aren’t the reason class is grinding to a halt, the teacher is. Think of it: why does it matter that a student answers versus a teacher? It kinda doesn’t. You don’t really lose anything if the teacher answers the question and explains it thoroughly to the class.
Answering a question with your entire class as an audience isn’t a requirement to learn. When I applied myself, I learned easily without ever answering the question posed by the teacher, it didn’t hinder me in any way to be silent.
Teachers should just drop this need to have students publicly answer questions. If someone wants to answer, great! Let them answer! But don’t pull shit where you just make the class wait in silence until a student answers. That doesn’t help anyone and probably cuts down kn important time that could be used explaining the subject the teacher is currently talking about to the class.
I just don’t get why this became common place in schools.
This reminds me of the scene from Ferris Bueller Day off. sometimes people just don’t care.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhiCFdWeQfA
Don’t know, I was never in a class that was like that. I’m older, 75. If someone didn’t volunteer to answer in about 1.5 seconds the teacher pointed to a specific student and demanded that person answer. None of my teachers ever believed in non-participation.
Most people don’t like being the center of attention in that environment
I do a lot of instructing and when I do, there are 2 types of course material: Lecture based and Practical Exercise based.
Generally if it’s a lecture based material, the audience is not expected to have much if any knowledge in the material so asking lots of questions or expecting lots of participation is dumb. To garner participation, it requires breaking down the material to it’s most base concepts and translate that into something that anyone can understand.
The PE style material, I print out the slide decks and I teach the material by getting people to break into groups and actually give it a shot to solve a hypothetical problem.
If I have to ask a question and the class is grinding to a halt and creating awkwardness, then I’m doing my job poorly.
Cause I’m really fucking tired and my mouth/vocal cords will not be fully up and running until mid-day.
Personally I grew up always answering questions, and got ridiculed for it. By college, I had learned to sit back and listen.
(Stares blankly at OP waiting for someone else to answer)
Most of the questions seemed rhetorical. If it’s not an open discussion I never really understood why they’d bother asking straightforward questions.
I think a big part of it that I’m surprised no one has talked about yet is that (in America anyway) elementary, middle, and even high schools very much want you to be quiet and only speak when spoken to by the teacher in a lot of classes. It’s not all, but it seems to be enough to have a major impact. Kids that are seen as disruptive are often reprimanded and removed from the classroom.
I think to some degree, this kind of reaction to kids speaking whether they’re supposed to or not often leads to them wanting to speak less in general.
With that in mind, I almost believe it’s teachers/professors beginning to fall victim to the classroom culture that they cultivate.
Admittedly it probably sounds a bit like a crackpot theory, but I genuinely believe it does have an impact.
What is the benefit of answering the teachers question, and what is the possible drawbacks of answering the question?
Benefits are mostly limited to: testing your knowledge with engagement, a possible dopamine boost from getting it right, and ending the torture of waiting for the teacher to move on past their question. All of which are pretty minor benefits with minimal impact to you
Drawbacks are more abundant and are mostly: risking being wrong and looking stupid, cultivating an appearance of being a try-hard, class attention is drawn to you now instead of class, and answering really does nothing for your personal advancement. The embarrassment of being wrong infront of 20+ people can far outweigh the benefits of attempting the answer.
Then there is the fact that they may simply not know the answer.
When teaching a class, if you want students to respond to questions, you can apply the following. There are other tricks, but these work.
Battle diffusion of responsibility.
Energy and attention are at their lowest in the midpoint of a class.
Sometimes the question is so stupidly easy to answer it feels like a waste of time. Like if the profesor just said. There are 3 hippoes and then immediateñy after asks you how many hippoes there are.
People can be shy. It’s also a high-risk low-reward situation. Nobody cares if you get the answer right except to the extent that you free them from having to answer it.
Fear of public speaking. I hated getting marked down in class participation because I have terrible anxiety.
why answer the question?
Most of the class isn’t prepared. When I returned to collage and applied myself, I was that guy in the front that could answer any question. It was not hard, I just made sure I was read up for the day. It made learning more fun when I was actually doing what I was supposed to do.
There were guys that sat next to me that just laughed and joked the whole time, then their fraternity gave them access to the exam banks for them to pass the classes (assholes).
My first run, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, so, I just partied like everyone else. When I came back I picked a direction and got serious.
I said this many times in my class last semester:
“If you don’t answer, I still get paid and you still have to pay. May as well say something now.”
After a few weeks, people thawed.
I recently completed my MA and a lot of the classes were like this. I can’t answer for everybody but I learned very quickly not to answer questions.
Why?
Several of the instructors would ask an easy question. If you answered, they would ask you several more follow up questions which were usually more difficult. A couple of weeks into the course and the initial participation completely died. Not just from me, from everybody.
It is 8:13 on a hot Thursday morning, Sharon. The air conditioner took the day off. Let me sit here in my puddle of ass sweat and be miserable in peace. I don’t feel like being publicly cross-examined about this week’s reading.
Probably for a number of reasons, depending on the person.
Some may be shy and not want to draw attention to themselves. I have an extremely bright but autistic son and he hates answering questions even though he always knows the answer.
Some might be worried they will get the answer wrong or mess it up when they speak and embarrass themselves. Fear of embarrassment is a huge thing.
For others, they may not want to ruin their “cool” reputation. Unfortunately for some being smart equates to being uncool in a schooling environment. Which has always confused me!
Some may not want to get picked on for answering too much, as others may get frustrated that they always know the answer. Kind of a tall poppy situation.
Some may not be paying any attention, due to factors beyond their control eg adhd or other learning difficulties.
Others may not be listening or not care because they hate school and just don’t want to be there. Or just generally like to make things difficult for the teacher.
some people are shy and just dont want to be noticed
Maybe they just don’t want to be interrupted from their texting.
I never enjoyed drawing attention to myself. Having half of the classroom turn to stare you down is the worst
I answered once and the professor said “why would you think that?” In a really mean way like it was the dumbest thing I could said. So I never spoke again
What’s more important, my social standing with my peers or looking good in front of my teacher/professor?
If I answer wrong I look bad to everyone. If I answer correctly,I look like a try hard/suck up to my peers.
It just rarely pays offs.
Coming from someone who was usually like this, I did feel bad for contributing to the silence, but I genuinely did not know the answer most of the time. I learned late in college that I have ADHD. Not only was it extremely difficult for me to pay attention in class, but I simply cannot process material quickly enough to answer questions within minutes of first learning it. There were MANY times where a question had a seemingly-obvious answer yet I still couldn’t figure out what it was.
Or like me who would rather have my nails torn out with pliers than have an entire classroom of people with their attention on me as I answer a question
Years of having to raise a hand to speak.
Personally, I prefer to be asked questions directly. If you ask question to a group and wait for me to answer. I won’t. If you look at me and ask “what do you think?”
I’ll answer, even if I think I am wrong.
They are shy and don’t want to speak in public.
They were bullied at school for knowing the answers
They are the students and you the teacher, you are the one paid to answer questions
I think some of it is herd mentality. You’re in a room full of people not saying anything. It’s hard to break yourself away from that. It’s also why more people talk after the first person does.
You’ve never seen someone shamed for an imperfect answer in front of their classmates, have you? It only needs to happen once to leave an impression.
they expect someone else to answer
When I was in high school, we had a teacher who graded participation as a daily assignment. She defined “participation” as “answering questions when called on”. However, if you answered any questions wrong, you got a zero for the day and for the remainder of the week, since she wouldn’t call on you again because you got an answer wrong.
I used to be the kid who answered every question before I took that teacher’s class. Two years of that teacher, and now fifteen years later I still have a little voice in my head that screams “SHUT UP OR YOU’RE GONNA FAIL” every time I go to answer a question. 🙃
idk bro but my junior year chemistry class had an open notes, open book final exam, that we had THREE DAYS to do, including taking it home, and i was the ONLY person in my class who even turned it in. the 13 or so other people failed
When you’re in kindergarten and a teacher asks a question every hand shoots up “me! Me! Pick me!!” because a lot of them aren’t afraid to fail… because kindergartens fail all the time. They suck at everything. Teenagers are afraid to fail in front of their peers. University students are afraid to fail in front of their professors. I’m a non-traditional student (read: old) and I am allergic to silence. It drives me crazy when I’ve already contributed too much and nobody will say anything. I’m like, just start cold calling ffs!
Because these quations sometimes treat the students like they are idiots so they feel like idiots.
And then if you answer because you know it, the teacher “let someone else answer this one.”
For me it was the risk vs reward: the risk was looking stupid at getting an easy question wrong while the reward for answering correctly is.. proving I can answer a basic question? Not worth it and the teacher/lecturer should ask better more engaging questions
I tend to answer a few questions because it progresses things a bit quicker; ive also got ADHD and find if im engaging i’m less likely to get distracted straight away.
However, I don’t like answering more than 2 or 3 in a row. I find it makes me look like I’m trying to dominate the room or something even though nobody else is talking. Also, the more questions I answer, the more likely I am to get one wrong, and people tend to remember one bad thing over 100 good things
jeez, i knew it was common where i go to school, but i didn’t realize it was THIS common. yikes.
on that note, i’m one of the people who does answer. in certain classes, from what i can tell, some ppl just don’t give a shit. others like to sit back and rely on the (usually one or two) teacher’s pet/s in the room. i didn’t realize us suck-ups were resented, to a degree, that kinda sucks.
i don’t really understand why people would choose to join a class, pay to be there, and not answer. i understand being shy or anxious but like. this many people out of the population? like,,, it’s rough out there. communication in general has been a doozy lately
i never liked answering or making my presence known tbh, i got close to a LOT of profs through research but never publicly would do anything that brought attention to me, if classes weren’t mandatory i wouldn’t even go lol, and id usually sit in the back with headphones in and just study on my own as that’s how i’ve always learnt
If I know the answer then I know the answer… what additional benefit does answering out loud get me? If I don’t know the answer I obviously am not going to answer. Some of us just wanted to get out of said class as fast as possible with as little effort as possible.
I used to get bullied for answering questions in class. And I had alread developed severe social anxiety by that time. Being autistic in an environment with an abusive parent plus all those bad experiences made me not want to talk in front of others ever again.
It eventually got so bad that I couldn’t say anything even if i wanted.
(I went to uni for 4 years and didn’t say a single word to anyone)
Sometimes I just don’t know the answer, but the real reason is I’m just very awkward with anxiety and don’t need to spotlight on me
This reminds me of my time in school. Some teachers sometimes asked questions with the most obvious answers and it was just silent in the classroom. But the reason was not that we didn’t listen or were bratty, but more because it was so weird and we felt stupid to give the answer. Raising a hand in class to give answers meant that we wanted to contribute to the lesson. To show what we knew or thought. Giving an answer that was given 10 seconds prior felt pointless and irritating since it’s not our contribution/our knowledge but just repeating of something that was given.
So if you are a teacher, ask other questions. Engage with your students instead of letting them repeat what you just said.
As a student who usually knows the answer: why bother? I don’t magically learn more if I answer out loud, doesn’t matter if my answer was right or not. If the teacher thinks it’s important, they’ll tell it. If teachers really want active participation, they should add a measure of reward to it.
I had this problem in my class last year, in that particular group of people there was a direct correlation between knowing the answers and how shy the students were. The quiet nerdy kids who always pay attention, listen more than they talk, take notes etc. know the answers but also are too introverted to speak up. The students who are outspoken and loud were less likely to know the answer.
Some other comments are totally right, too. When I ask the class an open question or something with no right or wrong answer I get more responses, for example if I asked “what’s the tallest mountain in the world” crickets. “I’m going to write a list of mountains on the board and I want you to suggest some for me” at least 50% participation.
But yeah some people are just shy, I only get 50% of students shouting suggestions when playing goddamn hangman (and the quiet kids are still paying attention and invested in the game but they never say anything).