“How many times must I repeat this before you will learn it?” I have heard these words thousands of times, sometimes when I was a child in school and many more times as a career educator. Interestingly, “how many times…” always was just a rhetorical statement. No teacher asking such a question ever expected an answer. They really were just warming up before repeating the exact instruction they provided the child earlier. The teacher then would repeat the same instruction, word for word and action for action. Today, the decades of silence after this timeless rhetorical inquiry must end. The answer that teachers have been dying to hear is – “just once more, please.”
Once more is not a magical answer or a silly answer. It is not disrespectful, but actually very respectful. The child’s answer could have been 100 times as well once, but 100 times would be given only to prove the point. “Once” is the best and most effective answer because 100 times would only be 99 repetitions of the first. Once is the logical answer. If the child does not understand what she has been taught after one good and clarifying repetition, then the teacher is off the hook for the moment. Ninety-nine more times will only waste the teacher’s and the child’s time. Never repeat yourself more than once for the purpose teaching an independent lesson to a child. You are a fool if you repeat yourself over and over again.
The more pertinent question is not “how many times must I repeat this” but “how many different ways must I teach this to you before you will learn it?” Now, that is the educatinal question a teacher should ask when a child does not demonstrate that she has learned after the first instruction. Once, however, is not the appropriate response to this real question. The appropriate answer to this more powerful question is – “as many times as you must in order to cause the child to learn.” You may stop this line of teaching only when the child has learned.
Easy. The answer really is quite easy. Yet, it seldom is the answer that teachers make. For all the wrong reasons teachers follow their rhetorical question with “times up. It’s time to move on. Let’s see if you don’t learn this before the grading period is over.” This decision pushes a child along the pathway of learned helplessness, the number one cause of long-term student apathy, academic failure, drop out, and adult helplessness.
Easy remains the right word. When a teacher measures the amount of time required to find new ways of instructing the child at the moment when the child admits not learning against the amount of time needed to teach a child who is sliding down the pathway of learned helplessness, the equation is lopsided. Ten to fifteen minutes versus days, weeks and months. How much time? Just add together the time expended on reteaching/reviewing with a group of “didn’t get it the first time” students, the hours of after school tutorials, the weeks of summer school, and the months of repeating a failed course or repeating a failed grade level and “do it now” is the easy, time efficient, learning effective answer.
So, how do we know that one repetition is enough? Repeat the initial instruction to the child and then ask her to tell you in her own words what she understands about this knowledge or demonstrate the skill or act out the problem solving strategy. Check for her understanding. Do not check for her ability to repeat your words back to you. Check for her comprehension. If she is wrong or inaccurate or cannot actuate the skill or strategy correctly, teach her in a new way. And, don’t stop using your alternative ways of teaching her the same thing until she passes your check of her understanding.
Teach. If necessary, repeat the initial instruction. Check for understanding. If necessary, teach and teach again using alternative instructional strategies – checking for understanding after each alternative instruction. When the child demonstrates understanding stop and join this child with all other children in the class and begin your next instruction.
Then, teach. If necessary, repeat initial instruction. Check for understanding. And so it goes.
Easy. But, oh so hard. How do we know that this is hard? Check these data.
- Two out of three eighth-graders can’t read proficiently and most will never catch up. (NAEP, 2011) (NAEP, 2011)
- Nearly two-thirds of eighth-graders scored below proficient in math. (NAEP, 2011)
- Seventy-five percent of students are not proficient in civics. (NAEP, 2011)
- Nearly three out of four eighth-and 12th-grade students cannot write proficiently. (NAEP, 2012)
- Some 1.1 million American students drop out of school every year. (EPE, 2012)
- For African-American and Hispanic students across the country, dropout rates are close to 40 percent, compared to the national average of 27 percent. (EPE, 2012)
http://broadeducation.org/about/crisis_stats.html
Check for understanding and do not move to new instruction until ALL children have succeeded with their current learning. Teaching until all children are ready for new instruction is time well spent.