“Time out! Stop, take a breather, and let’s take a moment to talk about this.”
In many games there are signals a player can make that says “Time out!” Athletes use their hands to make a letter “T” to stop play. When actors lose their line, they stop, look to the prompter, and get their cue and proceed. When kids play tag or other run-around games, they yell “Freeze” and everybody stops cold in their tracks. Children need a time out signal in the classroom; a signal that says, “Stop the action. We need to talk about this.” Or, to extend the sports analogies, kids need a time out for a breathing space and a chance to talk over what they are learning so that they get their lesson right.
The problem is that most children think saying “time out” in the classroom means that they are dumb. If other children are not needing a time out, they must be smart enough to be learning the lesson. Hence, if I need a time out, I am not smart – I am dumb. And, no child wants to draw “look at the dumb kid” attention down upon himself. They would rather not learn than appear dumb.
At first blush, one might wonder if learning time outs really are necessary or a good thing in the management of a classroom. Should children be allowed to stop the flow of a lesson? Would they abuse the opportunity? The answer to these questions should be viewed from the student perspective. After all, causing all students to be successful learners is the outcome of interest. With student learning in mind, heck yes, allowing any child the option to pause and review what the class is learning makes a lot of sense. We know that the usual and traditional teacher inquiry asking “Does anyone have a question?” usually creates no more than silence. And, we know that waiting until after children take a quiz or test to identify what they did not learn through initial teaching is not the most effective strategy for creating successful learning. Then correct answer is this – for children and their teacher to be responsible for learning both need to have the authority to call a time out and to assure that everyone is getting the learning right.
So, we need a “no harm, no foul” classroom time out signal. Maybe something like the red towel a football coach waves or throws to request a review of the last play. Perhaps a purple card will do. Purple is a noticeable and regal color. A child could hold up or casually flash a purple card at the teacher, a simple gesture that does not draw too much peer attention to a request a review of past instruction. On seeing a purple card, if a teacher only said, “Okay, let’s pause. Tell me what you (heard, saw, known, can do) at this point,” all children would have the opportunity to consider what they heard, saw, know and can do with what they have just learned. And, if the teacher asks several children to review their learning, the teacher can make corrections and add instruction to strengthen student learning and then proceed with confidence.
From the long view, how good would it be if at the end of a unit of instruction a teacher knew that all children were ready for an assessment because there had been enough pauses to create confidence that all children had heard, saw, know and can do what was taught. Not knowing if children learned really is not an acceptable option and not having a “time out” protocol increases the likelihood that we do not have confidence in what children learned.