Asking a student questions is a good thing. It gives you as the teacher an idea of the student’s knowledge base, and at the high school level what his/her views might be on different topics. So questions are good unless you are asking for something that has an obvious answer. Then you are not asking questions you are telling the student to do something and giving him/her a command. Often we can fall into the trap of asking somewhere, when, and why questions to students. Things like; “Why are you late? Where is your pencil? Or, when are you going to sit down, either don’t matter or require a consequence for being tardy, unprepared, or non-compliant. It can be as innocent as stating “We are going to do math now, okay.” When we should be saying, “Take out your math book and turn to page…” Bullies love to do what they want when they want to. So, for the obvious stop asking and start telling.

Notice From The Bench

We are slowly relinquishing our authority. That’s Right. It’s time to regain some of the surrendered ground we have given up as teachers to choices and fear of parental repercussions. Parents too need to realize that their children need to see someone in charge and they are not the one’s making the decisions. When will we as a society understand that a child of five years old doesn’t need a choice they need leadership. They need to be told not asked. When this happens respect will return for authority figures.