How to Teach Students to Not Guess the Teacher’s Password?

Petruchio

As a teacher, I wonder if it is possible to instill this skill into students the skills of rationality and critical thinking. I teach the third grade, and it is not immediately apparent how to apply this with my own class.

The problems I foresee are as follows:

Young children often do not know the basics on the subject which they are learning, be it math, science, art, religion, literature etc.
Many children are very shy, and try to give as short of an answer as doable to a verbal prompt.
Written prompts are arduous, straining the attention span and writing capabilities of the students. This is not a bad thing, but it presents difficulties in the economy of time and material to be presented.
Attention spans in general are very short.
Experiments can be very infrequent, and nigh impossible with certain subjects.
Children, at this age, are likely to take the words of a parent or teacher at face value, and naturally parrot it back. This may be a hard habit to break.

In the sequences, it is suggested teachers should drill into students words don't count, only anticipation-controllers. How practical is this for an elementary school level? Also appreciated would be any ideas or experiences on how to do this, or how to combat the above problems. Hearing from other teachers would be excellent especially.

The problems I foresee are as follows:

Young children often do not know the basics on the subject which they are learning, be it math, science, art, religion, literature etc.
Many children are very shy, and try to give as short of an answer as doable to a verbal prompt.
Written prompts are arduous, straining the attention span and writing capabilities of the students. This is not a bad thing, but it presents difficulties in the economy of time and material to be presented.
Attention spans in general are very short.
Experiments can be very infrequent, and nigh impossible with certain subjects.
Children, at this age, are likely to take the words of a parent or teacher at face value, and naturally parrot it back. This may be a hard habit to break.

so concerned with getting the right arithmetic answers that they weren't thinking about arithmetic.

I don't understand what you're saying. "Thinking about arithmetic" is supposed to be the tool that helps them "get the right arithmetic answers". If they aren't getting the right answers, shouldn't that stimulate them to work harder at thinking about it?

I'm sure that was the hope. Holt's opinion was that grading (mere grading-- the school didn't use humiliation or corporal punishment) was enough to crank up their anxiety so far that they weren't paying attention to anything else.

Here's another clue about grades. I took a college level Alexander Technique course where the students were graded on attendance. Alexander Technique is a way of releasing habitual tension [1] so as to be able to move more efficiently.

The teacher said he'd found that if students were being graded on their ability to not pull their... (read more)

2The Dao of Bayes14y

In elementary school, we had to memorize the multiplication tables (1-10 times 1-10). We were then quizzed on this. Being able to answer "5x5 = 25" meant we had memorized the tables The teacher then asked what "5 x 12" was, which checked to make sure we actually understood multiplication. Hopefully that clarifies the difference :)

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How to Teach Students to Not Guess the Teacher’s Password?

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How to Teach Students to Not Guess the Teacher’s Password?

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