After nearly two decades in the classroom, I’ve noticed something that happens regardless of what I’m teaching or whether the students are freshmen or seniors. I’ll finish explaining an idea, pause for a moment, and ask, “Does that make sense? Does anyone have any questions?”
Almost every time, the same thing happens. The students look around at one another. Then they look back at me.
Silence.
Now I’m left trying to decide exactly how long to let the awkward pause continue. After a few seconds, I begin searching the room for someone—anyone—who might make eye contact. Eventually I find a student and give them the universal teacher look that says, “How about you?”
Almost invariably, they nod.
Well, that settles it. Everyone understood. Time to move on.
Except that’s almost never true. When the exam comes around, it quickly becomes obvious that several students didn’t understand the concept at all. So why didn’t they ask?
Over the years, I think I’ve figured it out.
When I ask whether anyone has questions, confused students don’t just look at me. They look at everyone else. They don’t see anyone raising a hand. They don’t hear anyone saying, “I’m lost.” So they conclude that everyone else understands and that they’re the only one who doesn’t. Rather than risk looking foolish, they stay quiet. The strange thing is that many of the other students are doing exactly the same thing.
Then it hit me.
A room full of confused people can look exactly like a room full of people who understand.
Once I realized this, I started changing how I checked for understanding. In some classes, instead of asking students to raise their hands, I’ll ask them to respond anonymously through their phones or laptops before they know how anyone else has answered. Every time I do, more students tell me they don’t understand than when I simply ask for raised hands.
The difference isn’t the lesson. It isn’t the students. It’s the social situation. Without realizing it, we’ve removed one important question from their minds: “What is everyone else thinking?”
The more I thought about it, the more I realized this isn’t just a classroom problem. It’s a human problem.
We don’t just learn from what people tell us—we also learn from what they don’t say. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always found survey research so fascinating. Every few months, a poll comes out showing that a surprisingly large majority of Americans support—or oppose—something.
My first reaction is often the same: If so many people privately believe this, why doesn’t it sound that way in public?
Perhaps it’s because, unlike survey researchers, most of us can’t conduct anonymous polls of the people around us. We can’t see inside other people’s heads, so we do the next best thing: We watch. We look for clues about what everyone else is thinking. If no one objects, we assume everyone agrees. If no one asks a question, we assume everyone understands.
If no one speaks up, we assume everyone is comfortable with what’s happening.
The problem is that silence is not nearly as informative as we think it is. Much of what we think we know about other people isn’t based on what they’ve actually told us. It’s based on what we’ve inferred from their silence. Sometimes those inferences are correct. Often, they aren’t. Silence can mean agreement. It can mean understanding. But it can also mean uncertainty. Confusion. Discomfort. Fear of looking foolish. Or simply waiting for someone else to go first.
The next time you’re tempted to assume everyone agrees, everyone understands, or everyone is okay with the way things are, remember the classroom. A room full of confused people can look exactly like a room full of people who understand. And sometimes all it takes is one person speaking up for everyone else to realize they weren’t alone.
This MFP Voices opinion essay reflects the personal opinion of its author(s). The column does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.
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