AN INQUIRY INTO TEACHER AND STUDENT VOICE
IN CLASSROOM DISCOURSE

Matthias Meiers

Situating The Inquiry

This morning I reminded myself of some very important advice. This is how I put it to myself, "Matt, if you want to know what the children are learning, listen to them speak, and ask strategic questions." Thus I spoke to myself after having written and put together the following text. It is a collage of stories and reflections into the critical aspects of classroom discourse which are of concern to me as a teacher of eleven and twelve-year-olds. Their voices had to be included. I also decided to let Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt and Michael Oakeshott speak in this collage because their words are influencing my thinking and my voice.

Let me begin with a rather stodgy but perhaps helpful definition of discourse. I understand classroom discourse to mean the totality of manifest speech acts within the four walls of the classroom. This totality includes all spoken and written language which becomes audible or visible and thus present to others in the room. The reason for my concern with classroom discourse is defined in these sentences by Heidegger:

Words and language are not wrappings in which things are packed for the commerce of those who write and speak. It is in words and language that things first come into being and are. For this reason the misuse of language in idle talk, in slogans and phrases destroys our authentic relation to things (Heidegger, 1959: 13-14).

In classroom where children are speaking and writing "the right things" in exchange for "good grades", language is reduced to a form of currency which has actually no value in the outside world and no value to the potential humanity of children. The message to children is, "Follow the instructions and you will avoid unpleasant confrontations with your teacher and possibly your parents." More often than not "the right answers" and "the right things said" represent a vapid second guessing of the teacher's frame of reference or a disinterested parroting of phrases and concepts privileged by the teacher's voice. Where does such commerce of words and language originate? Heidegger identified the uncritical, unreflective voice of public opinion which he called "the they" as the source.

The dominance of the public way in which things have been interpreted has already been decisive... They "they" prescribes one's state-of-mind and determines what and how one sees (Heidegger, 1962: 213).

Hannah Arendt (1983) summarizes this notion in the sarcastic phrase, "The light of the public obscures everything (p. ix)."

The first two teachers I encountered as a child hurled me into the light of the public. They allowed their classrooms to become places in which destructive manifestations of public discourse - such as indifference to the experience of other human beings, alienating work under coercive conditions, competition among students for a limited number of good grades and racist statements - were firmly entrenched.

*****

THREE TEACHERS WHOSE NAMES I REMEMBER:
Frau Schmidt, Herr Hauptmann & Herr Koehler

l966
First grade
Forty children in straight rows
Facing black blackboard
Frau Schmidt printed letters in white chalk
on black blackboard
I sat at wooden desk
I sat silently and copied block letters
HANSCHEN KLEIN GING ALEIN IN DIE WEITE WELT HINEIN
Ten times
Each letter forced labour - only the pencil couldn't be forced --
And detention, if the work wasn't done
Detention -- Frau Schmidt led me
across the cobble-stone school yard
into the old school building
up creaky staircase
Gothic cathedral classroom
where I sat alone facing Frau Schmidt
who silently corrected tests and solved crossword puzzles
I cried
Her calm stare through coke-bottle glasses spat,
"You have all afternoon to write these lines."
I waited all afternoon for the afternoon to end
But Frau Schmidt never spoke
She printed letters in white chalk on black blackboard.
Herr Hauptmann
Second grade
Gave endless dictations and
waged war on poor spellers
"Recopy those words twenty times!"
Herr Hauptmann, huge hand holding
fountain pen spilling red ink
cut into dictated words
waged war on my Sicilian friend, Joseph
Who had just stepped off the train from Sicily
No doubt third class traveller
To live in two-room apartment, family of five,
To stutter broken German in Herr Hauptmann's class
To listen to Herr Hauptmann mimic "pathetic German"
To endure Herr Hauptmann's mock joviality, "Poor Joseph! German language... hard language, right?"
To sink into silence
Joseph never spoke to him again
Herr Hauptmann cut into words.
Herr Koehler, mischievous and defiant joker,
"Let them fire me! I'll retire in six months anyway!",
Fifth grade,
Chain smoking at his desk
Cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth
On the first day of school he waved me over to his desk,
"Matthias, what do you like to write about?
"I don't know."
"Have you ever written anything?"
"Yes, dictations and copying from the board."
"Well, I'm not going to write on the board for you.
Here you have to do the writing.
If you can't help it, start copying from any book
on those shelves until you figure out what to write."
That day I wrote.

Herr Koehler's discourse was that of a genuine teacher because it could bring about the release of new possibilities in me. "In this way", Heidegger (1992) wrote, "discourse proves itself as a mode of maturation" (p. 272).

I believe this ought to be the moral function of classroom discourse. Therefore, my inquiry poses this question: under which conditions do speech acts release and make apparent new possibilities within children.

As human beings, we participate in a culture that precedes our individual existence and defines our possibilities for action in the immediate and distant future. Spoken and written words, as artifacts of the distant or immediate past, serve as signposts mapping out possibilities for human activity. The note which one of my grade-six students handed to me last week exemplifies this function of discourse.

I, Andy Jackson, was thinking of doing a school newspaper to be sold every Monday in the canteen or in the office for a price of seventy-five cents for the Cancer Society.
It will include the up-coming events in our school, comics (if possible), information on new canteen items and much, much more!
We could get together with Mrs. Steven's class and put the paper together.
THANX
Sincerely.
Andy Jackson

Andy's plan does not arise out of a void. The children are currently preparing an anthology of their stories for publication within the school. We have also participated in fundraising events to help a young cancer patient in her search for a bone marrow donor. Andy has interpreted these goings-on as worthwhile and wants to reconstitute them in the future. Thus his capacity for meaningful action is first a function of his interpretive understanding, the recognition of meaningful structures among the chaotic multitude of phenomena present to his senses. Interactive understanding, a second dynamic of the capacity for meaningful action, hinges on the perception of what is possible within a given social context in which one is a participant. As the term suggests, interactive understanding is the knowing-how to articulate projects that will appear realizable, worthwhile and inviting to others. In classrooms where meaningful learning occurs the teacher is present as an exemplar of interpretive/interactive understanding, recognizing and communicating possibilities for meaningful activity. Poor teaching, misinterpretation of the possibilities for action within a given context and dysfunctional communication go hand in hand, as the following story illustrates. I entitled it:

Painful Mathematics And A Violent Clash Of Educational Ideologies
On A German Train Moving Through Stifling Summer Heat In 1968

When I was eight years old and in grade three I spent four weeks in the care of a favourite aunt. Her name was Maria. Because she lived in Saarbruecken which is a three hour-train ride from my hometown, Bonn, my stay with this aunt also entailed a change in schools.

My new teacher ran a taut ship and demanded total obedience. This meant among other things having to work out twenty-five math questions every evening for homework. The class was working on multiplication tables, an area of study, I had tried very hard to avoid during the early years of my school career. This teacher was determined that times tables would finally catch up with me. In fact, you will see, as you continue reading the story, that much of the adult world seemed to have conspired against me to force me to memorize those tables.

Students had to complete all their homework. The punishment for an unfinished assignment was having to do twice the amount for the next day.

I tested the resolve of this teacher and in the morning of my second day in her classroom told her very politely and truthfully that I had not even begun to work on last night's homework.

She responded in a very firm and resolute tone, "Well, Matthias you now owe me twice the amount of last night's homework, twenty-five questions multiplied by two makes fifty, as well as the twenty-five questions which I will assign this afternoon. So you will be very busy tonight because fifty plus twenty-five equals seventy-five."

My good aunt - you will meet her formidable counterpart later - reacted with indignation to the barbaric tactics of this teacher and advised me to forget about this "crazy assignment" and go play with my friends instead.

The next morning my teacher asked to see my math notebook and with a threatening undertone in her voice doubled my assignment again, "Matthias! Seventy-five multiplied by two makes one hundred and fifty, add twenty-five questions, tonight's homework, this will make one hundred and seventy-five."

My aunt laughed at what she called "the unbelievable stupidity of this person" and suggested I should resist at all costs, if this was a battle I wanted to fight. "Matthias, remember these two rules: Don't do it if it doesn't make sense to you. Let your conscience be your guide."

Enter the other aunt, she showed up on the last day of my stay in Saarbruecken to pick me up at the school. I had managed to hold out against my tyrannical teacher for four weeks and every day she had doubled my assignment and added twenty-five questions. Aunt Franziska, or Aunt Sissy for short, was a high school teacher. She had decided to pick me up at school and talk to my teacher. Her intent was to find out whether I had worked diligently.

I am not sure what passed between the two adults, as they spoke in private conference. Aunt Sissy left the staff room visibly angry, very firmly took hold of my hand and walked quickly, with a very resolute gait. She dragged me behind her out the door and down the street towards the railway station.

"My dear young man, this will be the last time you decide to run circles around any teacher! I am on to you! You are going to learn those times tables even if it kills you!"

Now this statement worried me. The train ride from Saarbruecken to the safety of my home in Bonn would take about three hours. It would be one of the longest, most painful and memorable train rides of my life. Aunt Sissy was determined to teach me those times tables. I sat down facing her in the first-class compartment of this slow moving train. She fixed her eyes on me and started firing questions at me: five times eight, seven time eight et cetera. My usually incorrect answers were always preceded by a long, hesitant silence which Aunt Sissy misconstrued as sullen defiance.

She gave me an even more threatening glance and hissed, "Each time you give me a wrong answer I will give you a slap on the face. More than four seconds of silence after my question will constitute an incorrect reply." The speed, but not the accuracy of my responses improved and, true to her word, she followed through with the announced "consequence". Her timing was very accurate. After exactly four seconds of silence I would receive a hard slap to which she would add the correct answer encouraging me to memorize it because "the question would come up again very soon".

As the train pulled into Cologne, Aunt Sissy decided to grant herself and me a five-minute recess. We sat in silence. I sat silently and sullenly with very red, hot cheeks. I knew Bonn was a mere thirty minutes from Cologne and that this insanity would soon be over. I resented my aunt's attitude but most of all my total powerlessness.

As I was thinking about the remaining thirty minutes of my math lesson, three rather drunk members of a bowling team entered our first-class compartment. They were in a very jovial mood, exchanging jokes and speaking the plebeian Cologne-dialect which identified them immediately in the eyes of my aunt as members of the local "proletariat."

As the train pulled out of the station, Aunt Sissy resumed her math lesson and her violent corrections. One of the three plebeians took a marked interest in my aunt's pedagogical efforts. He staggered over to her and with stinking breath and slurred speech told her, "Next time you hit that child you will be dealing with me."

Then everything happened very quickly. She fired the most difficult question she could think of in my direction, "How much is seven times eight?" and, not even waiting four seconds for my answer, raised her right hand and struck me. The drunk gentleman made a fist, aimed and resolutely directed his fist into one of my aunt's eyes. She teetered and fell down. It took her a while to get up off the ground.

As Sissy was struggling to assume a vertical position, the man turned to me and asked, "Who is this idiot?"

"My aunt. She is taking me home."

"If you want me to, I'll stay by your side until you get home."

On hearing this, Aunt Sissy uttered a piercing scream, "Don't go with this strange man!" staggered out of the compartment and called for the conductor. My saviour was arrested at the next train station. Then she sank into a sullen silence. Her left eye had started to turn a purplish blue and swell up by the time we arrived in Bonn.

My mother greeted us at the train station, took one look at her and asked, " W H A T happened to you?"

Sissy responded, "This is what happens when you try to teach other people's children. And you…I will never help you with your school work again!"

And true to her word, she never tried to teach me again.

Perhaps Michael Oakeshott (1991) was thinking of my aunt when he wrote,

Each voice is prone to superbia, that is an exclusive concern with its own utterance, which may result in its identifying the conversation with itself and its speaking as if it were speaking only to itself. And when this happens, barbarism may be observed to have supervened (p. 493).

The voices of Frau Schmidt, Herr Hauptmann and Aunt Sissy exuded superbia. Their classrooms were unheimlich, uncanny, unwelcoming and scary territory because I did not feel at home in the activity which these teachers demanded of me. They intuited my estrangement and responded to it with coercion and threats to force my compliance. I believe this is the essence of barbarism in classrooms.

Aunt Sissy differs from my first two teachers in that she was driven by a blind and very misguided concern for my future well-being. She understood teaching as resolute, forceful action and as preparation for our Leistungsgesellschaft (achievement-driven society) which discarded human beings with poor work habits who did not want to achieve. To explore some of the psychological dynamics of the train-incident let us first reconstruct and listen to the viewpoints of the main actors.

Sissy:

Matthias is being lazy. He must be forced to apply himself. He is resisting adult authority and this will cost him his future in our Leistungsgesellschaft. I must be strict with him. I don't want him to be a member of the working class. I want him to be university educated and have a good future.

Matt:

These slaps in the face hurt. How much is seven times eight? I have no idea. I will never figure out the answer in time. It's hot in this train. I can't think. I am afraid. My cheeks hurt.

The gentleman on the train:

This kid is being hit in the face because he doesn't know his times table. This woman is crazy and abusive. I'll give her a taste of her own medicine and put a stop to this.

The key actors constructed the situation very differently. I believe that its dynamic was driven by fear, anger and stubborn pigheadedness: my fear of humiliating and painful slaps in the face, the gentleman's drunken outrage and Sissy's totalitarian educational philosophy. The actors did not make their understandings visible to each other in speech because their communicative competence was seriously impaired. Sissy's belief in the resolute use of force in child-rearing and education led her to act abusively. The intoxicated gentleman was unable to express his revulsion at my aunt's abusive behaviour in words and draw her into a conversation to make his view visible. As a powerless minor whose only option for resistance to meaningless and boring multiplication times tables had been passive withdrawal, I found myself suddenly without Aunt Maria's protection thrown into a bewildering context in which I could not speak my thoughts freely.

The only statements allowed were answers to Sissy's questions. The following sample of our speech shows the degree to which the dialogue between task-master and learner was impoverished.

Sissy: Seven times three?
Matt: Twenty-one.
Sissy: Four times eight?
Matt: Thirty-two.

With one threatening pronouncement she had attempted to cancel my will and thereby declared my thinking, my inner life and my humanity null and void. My last refuge, retreat into inner life, silent meditation and sullen defiance of the demands of the adult world, had been exploded and I faced a brutal invasion of my inner world. She believed my thought world and the attitudes which inhabit it could be shaped to her will, as if her inner life were merely an extension of mine. Hannah Arendt speaks about the ruinous consequences of trying to produce thoughts and actions in other human beings.

The end-means category to which all doing and all producing are necessarily bound always proves to be ruinous when applied to acting. For doing, like producing, starts with the assumption that the subject of the act fully knows the end to be attained and the object to be produced, so that the only problem is to find the proper means to achieve those ends. Such an assumption in turn presupposes a world in which there is only a single will, or which is so arranged that all the active ego-subjects in it are sufficiently isolated from one another so that there will be no mutual interference of the ends and aims. With action the reverse is true; there is an infinitude of intersecting and interfering intentions and purposes which, taken all together in their complex immensity, represent the world into which each man must cast his act, although in that world no end and no intention has ever been achieved as it was originally intended…whereas for doing and producing ends are totally dominant over means, just the opposite is true for acting; the means are always the decisive factor (Arendt, 1983: 142).

In that train compartment Sissy had tried to create a world in which there existed only a single will -- hers. She had cast her totalitarian act into the world, acted violently and used force in her misguided attempt to make my experience an extension of hers. The means she employed, the use of force, had determined the quality of my experience. Instead of helping me learn and teaching me multiplication tables, she had violated my humanity and received a black eye for it. The importance of Hannah Arendt's insight is that in the human sphere the means employed decisively and yet unpredictably lead to a corresponding end. This limitation on the effectiveness of human action makes teaching a very difficult enterprise in which there is no room for simplistic tips. The classroom, just like Sissy's train compartment, is a human sphere. A modus operandi like "you have to break some eggs to make an omelette" does not work in the classroom. The teacher and the students end up with is broken eggs but, as I suspect, no one will get an omelette.

The quality of the student-teacher relationship evolves out of the teacher's understanding of his activity. In the professional conversation I frequently encounter two metaphors for describing teaching as an activity. They are teaching as transmission and teaching as transaction. As a metaphor, teaching as transmission can be explained in terms of motor vehicle mechanics. In a car the transmission transfers power from the engine to the wheels. Teaching as transmission assumes that children require behavioural directives and strict marching orders issued by resolute adults. In the absence of this impetus provided by the teacher children would remain motionless and inert. The metaphor of teaching as transmission, however, does not describe classroom reality, if we believe that it is a human sphere where children are constantly acting, that is making their own decisions and manifesting their own intentions. Within any classroom there is an infinitude of intersecting and interfering intentions and purposes which, taken all together in their complex immensity, represent the classroom world into which each teacher and student must cast his/her act. The transmission teacher presupposes a classroom world in which there is only a single will. This dysfunctional fantasy generates unproductive classroom power struggles between teachers and their students.

As a teacher who views teaching and learning as socially constructed, I believe that the human relationships in the classroom community must facilitate constructive conversations about curriculum. In my class of eleven and twelve-year-olds I prepared the ground for academic conversations by extending invitations to them to speak to me openly about all their concerns arising out of classroom life. Thus, in my daily inquiry I raised the following questions:

1. How am I allowing the children to develop a sense of the conversations in which I want them to participate?
2. What kinds of explicit invitations am I issuing to the children to participate in these conversations?
3. How am I inadvertently facilitating or obstructing them?

This is how I understand the dynamic of the inquiry process in terms of an abstract outline:

1. Description of discourse patterns means that I am collecting information about my speech with children and the classroom conversation in which it is situated.
2. Interpretation is reflection on the significance of these patterns with a view to changing/improving them.
3. Plans for change evolve out of strategic reflection with the purpose of improving the quality of the discourse patterns.

*****

Conversations With Eleven And Twelve Year Olds

1. Maggie Writes A Note Inquiring Into The Meaning Of My Language And Asks, "Do You Mean What You Say?"

I started looking for significant conversation events to understand what they said about my role in the classroom conversation. Incidentally, I discovered that as my loud classroom voice softened, their voices softened, too. There were still strong disagreements and differences between the children and me which are an essential characteristic of any classroom situation. In the first two months of this school year I defined these disagreements which were often instances of student resistance as "things we need to talk about". I also told the children that they could at any time write me a note, hand it to me and expect a reasonable answer, even if I were in the middle of a lecture. The written note to Mr. Meiers became a legitimate and very functional device for polite disagreement and thus constructive dialogue between the children and me. Most importantly, I wanted them to object to my moments of teacher superbia. Little did they know that it was my intention to make student superbia a topic of conversation as well.

On October 15, Maggie decided that she would be the first student to interrupt one of my speeches with a note. About five minutes before afternoon recess I had asked all the children to sit on the carpet and grumpily started a lecture on "following instructions promptly". Three weeks before, I had given a similar lecture which had robbed the kids off their afternoon recess. After that experience, the children gave me a lecture on "fairness" and I gave them my word that I would never again lecture the whole class for the actions of a few during a recess. About two minutes into my speech Maggie rose from the carpet, excused herself very politely, walked to her table and wrote quickly and silently. Then she resolutely tore off a sheet from her spiral-bound notebook, approached me with a firm and very serious expression and with outstretched right arm handed me this note.

Mr. Meiers,
REMEMBER, when Jennifer slammed the door one time and you told us that we (the class) would not be punished for the actions of one person. Well, with all due respect, you are doing that now. I and other people think this sucks.
From,
Maggie

I paused and read the note silently. The recess bell rang. Could it be that Maggie had caught me in the middle of a critical incident - at the height of Matt Meiers superbia? Maggie was not quarrelling with the need to speak to misbehaving students about their misbehaviour but she pointed out that she did not have to be included in such a discussion. I told everyone to take their recess. In the back of my mind I was working on a plan to speak with the "offenders" but I also made a mental note to have a written conversation with Maggie the following morning.

I believe that the advantage of written dialogue is that it proceeds more slowly and gives the participants more time to think. More importantly, the act of writing concretizes thought in words and sentences. The conversation becomes visible. As Martin Heidegger (1959) wrote,

It is in writing that the spoken language comes to stand. Language is, i.e. it stands in the written image of the word, in the written sign, the letters, grammata... But through the flow of speech language seeps away into the impermanent (p.64).

The permanence of the written word allows the writer to see and reflect upon his language.

Thoughtful conversation can only occur when the participants are willing and unintimidated partners. Hannah Arendt (defined even more stringent conditions for it when she wrote, "The dialogue of thought can be carried out only among friends, and its basic criterion, its supreme law, as it were, says: Do not contradict yourself." (The Life of the Mind: Thinking, 189) I am not advocating friendship between teachers and their students. However, the students' and the teacher's ability to respect its supreme law defines and characterizes the quality of classroom conversations and discourse.

The written dialogue between Maggie and me took place in silence. Maggie did not require any verbal clarifications. As a very competent writer and fluent thinker, she wrote quickly and confidently. I have suggested to the children that the written word become our voice during this process.

Matt: What happened? What was going on when you wrote this note?
Maggie: I wrote it because you were going to make the whole class stay in because of a few people who were goofing off. You forgot about what you told us about not being unfair to us anymore.
Matt: Thank you for the note. Did I punish the whole class for the actions of a few? Why didn't I?
Maggie: Because you read the note and no, you had not punished the whole class.
Matt: What happened because you wrote the note?
Maggie: You listened.

The rule of not punishing or inconveniencing the whole class for the actions of a few "who were goofing off" was thus tested and confirmed by Maggie's speech act. Maggie recognized that I had tried not to contradict myself and to be true to my word. However, this did not mean - at least to me - that recess conversation with the whole class could not take place, if, in my judgement, a pressing issue confronted us all. The children had the right to question but not to overrule my judgement. This means they were entitled to a responsible answer from me but they did not have the right to assert their will arbitrarily.

2. Jennifer Writes A 500 Word Essay On Behaviour And Mr. Meiers Replies

Throughout her school career Jennifer has been very successful academically. She reads and writes very well. At the same time, Jennifer has a tendency to act impulsively when frustrated and to manipulate adults to angry outbursts. I taught Jennifer in grade five and she has returned this year to be in my grade six class. In fact she has moved up with all of her peers. Last year I recognized Jennifer's very considerable academic abilities and her impulsivity early on. Even though her intellectual engagement in the curriculum is very intense she shows a strong desire to set the classroom agenda and recklessly confront me in front of her peers when she gets bored or wants to monopolize my attention on her terms.

On November 22, I asked Jennifer to retell everything she remembered of such a confrontation. She entitled her story:

ESSAY ON BEHAVIOUR
Chapter One
Lately my behaviour has been unacceptable. I will give you an example. On November 21, l996 during period 7 and 8 it was Math class. We were working in discussion with Mr. Meiers on page 369 while the grade 7 pupils were working on grade 7 math.
During these two math lectures, I chose to sit by my friend Jane. We are both good friends and enjoy talking together. I thought at first that it might not be the best idea, but I decided to see how it would go. We talked on and off and still tried to do our math at the same time. The class seemed to be very loud and disruptive and that made Jane and me talk all the more.
Mr. Meiers got angry at the entire class and Jane and I stopped talking. Looking back at the situation, I now know that I should not have talked with Jane during that class.
Chapter Two
Here is another example of when my behaviour has been unacceptable. On November 22, l996 in period l we had Mr. Meiers. He told Jane and me that we had to stay in at lunch hour because of our behaviour the day before. I gave Mr. Meiers a dirty look. I did not think he would see it and I now know that I should not have done that. It was rude of me to do that.
He saw me do that and said: "You know what Jennifer. Maybe you will stay in 1,2,3, or four lunch hours with me also."
Then I said: "Maybe even 5,6,7,8, - if you are always in a bad mood like this Mr. Meiers."
He then said: "Fine Jennifer, you have a 500 word essay on behaviour."
I said: "But Mr. Meiers, I am sorry. Why do I have to do a 500 word essay?"
He responded: "Because your behaviour is unacceptable and I will no longer tolerate it."
Chapter Three
Lately Andy Jackson and I have been having problems together. We are bugging each other and being rude to one another. This is disrupting the class and we both know that we should not be doing that! On Friday, November 22, Andy told someone something that was not true. I became very angry at Andy and so was my friend, Jane. I told Jane, since she is a very good friend and I tell her everything. Jane went up to Andy, told him off and slapped him across the face. This was not right of Jane to do. Hitting does not solve anything. I then went up to Andy and was going to say: "Andy, you really hurt my feelings saying that and that person will probably never like me now. I am very angry at you."
Just as I was saying that I swung around and accidentally hit Andy in the stomach. He then came up behind me and pushed me and I turned around and said: "You want to go right here and now." He said: "Sure!" He looked me right in the eye and I burst out laughing. We were just joking around.
Mr. Meiers then called us to his desk and told us that we have to go to the office.
I learned several lessons from this. I know that I must have more respect for other people, my elders and my peers. I also know that I must stop talking in class. I want to learn how to control my impulsive behaviour. I want to be a good student, show leadership qualities and have a good relationship with Mr. Meiers.
Sincerely,
Jennifer O'Neil

Jennifer's letter raised numerous issues for me. First, there was the manner in which she recalled my giving her the assignment. My words to her had been, "Jennifer, I want you to write down everything that has just happened. Write it as a story, put yourself, me and anyone else who plays a part in this situation into your story. Make it at least 500 words because you will need detail, lots of thick and descriptive detail." In her narrative she reconstructed my statement as, "Fine Jennifer, you have a 500 word essay on behaviour." Why did she remember my words this way? At the time of our heated exchange both of our voices were exclusively concerned with their own utterances and had succumbed to superbia. I had started this exchange by telling her that the previous day's behaviour needed to be talked about at noon. I had intended a short conversation at the beginning of the lunch hour. In retrospect, I suspect Jennifer must have felt that I was challenging her to a duel in front of her peers and, yes, in an angry moment I had attempted to put Jennifer in her place and put an end to her defiant attitude. To her this assignment felt like a punishment and she expressed this perception in the voice she projected onto me in her quote of my instructions. Nonetheless, the work itself shows that she had remembered them accurately. Her story has considerable narrative detail, shows her perspective and also describes the behaviours of all the people who participated in the drama.

In my response letter I decided to acknowledge my momentary lapse into superbia and respond to her action plan.

November 24, l996
Dear Jennifer,
Thank you for this very detailed story. I think it can help both of us work at making life in the classroom better.
Your story told me quite a few things I did not know. For example, in Chapter Two I must have appeared like a monster to you when I said, "Maybe you will stay 1,2,3 or four lunch hours." Yes I said that. I acted out of anger and I did not think about it until I read your story. I want students to be responsible for their actions and to treat everybody in the classroom with respect and dignity. That is why, as your teacher, I have to work hard to treat all of my students with respect and dignity. My words sounded like a threat and that did not help you think about what you were doing and what was happening in the classroom. Instead, I should have said, "This is a problem. We need to find time to talk about it."
Chapter Three gives me important information about what was happening when I got upset and sent you to the office. It was clean-up time at the end of the school day. I really want everyone to concentrate on putting everything in its proper place so that we don't have to start our work the following day in a disorganized classroom. Well, I had no idea that you were in the middle of a conflict with Andy. I wonder, could you not have tried to resolve the conflict after clean-up time by sitting down and talking to him.
I do get upset when you put off classroom business to do what you want to do at a particular moment. The problem is that you do this too often. If it happened once in a blue moon, I would not get too upset. But you are making a habit of it. So I see you often take care of personal business while other kids are putting up chairs, picking up garbage off the floor etc. This means that someone is doing your share of the work and that does not seem fair to me - nor to you, I imagine.
The last two sentences of Chapter Three really touched me. You write, "I want to learn how to control my impulsive behaviour." You are a very intelligent and fine human being and I believe that there are many, many things you will learn in your life. Give yourself the time to think about how everything is going for you. Write stories of things that are not going well - for example, if you want to control your impulsivity, write down what happened during the moments when you act on impulse and without thinking. Most importantly, share these stories with the people who want to help you and see you do well.
Sincerely,
Mr. Meiers

I gave Jennifer this letter at the end of the day. She glanced at it and said, "I will write you a short response." The following morning I saw this typed and laser-printed note lying open on my desk - where other kids could see it.

Dear Mr. Meiers:
Your story really moved me. It was beautiful. Thank you so much for helping me with everything this year. I am sorry for how I have been acting. Thanx!! Yes, we will talk more.
Sincerely,
Jennifer O'Neil

My first reaction was that Jennifer wanted to call off the classroom duelling and also to serve notice of this to her peers. Andy and Jane were reading the note when I entered the classroom. Jennifer appeared very unconcerned. She was organizing her writing folder and occasionally glancing at them and me. I picked up the note, walked over to her desk and then asked, "Can we talk about this for a few minutes later on?" It is clear to me that we will need to continue having conversations in which we make our agendas visible to each other and thus visible to constructive criticism.

Since this written exchange Jennifer has been more responsive and amenable to thoughtful dialogue and has manifested this constructive attitude in her behaviour. Jennifer is allowing our ongoing dialogue to inform her activity in the classroom.

3. Christine Begins To Write Stories In grade Five

I first met Christine when she entered my grade five class at the beginning of the last school year. She was described to me by the previous year's teacher as "a very compliant, polite and pleasant girl - the type who never gives you a problem". In the first week of that academic year I acquainted myself with my students' literacy skills by having them read and write to me. I also gave them a short dictation, fifty words in length, from Haroun and the Sea of Stories after I had read the first chapter to the class. I wanted to see how they would handle the spelling of more difficult words. Christine brought a "Sunshine Series" Book which she carried in her school bag to the reading conference.

I asked, "Would you like to read a paragraph from Haroun and the Sea of Stories to me? We could take turns reading sentences."

Christine smiled, "Yes, but first I want to read from this book. O.K.?"

"Please, read to me."

Christine began to read individual words, halting after each word, as if trying to decipher a foreign code. It reminded me of my attempts to read Yiddish scribed in Hebrew letters. Then she confidently reached for my copy of Haroun, as she called it, and began reading the first word, paused and said slowly, "This is hard."

"We are going to work a lot on your reading."

"Look at my story. I don't write stories much"

Christine had written "Ph Br Wnt ols to house" in very neat and legible cursive letters.

"Christine, please, read me your story."

Christine fixed her eyes on her written text. After a pause she looked at me and spoke in a slow, deliberate voice, "It says, ‘Pooh Bear went to Owl's house.'"

"Do you like Winnie the Pooh?"

"He's the best."

"What stories about him have you read?"

"I have seen some movies."

By this time I was very worried. I told Christine that she would be "doing lots of listening to people reading to her, and lots of telling and writing stories." Christine smiled serenely and answered, "Sure. Can I start now?"

After school I called Christine's mom and asked whether she could read to her every day starting with Milne's The House at Pooh Corner.

Mrs. Long agreed and then added, "Is Christine behind? Because last year's teacher told me she was doing fine."

I decided to avoid this landmine and shift the conversation to make a possible action plan visible to both of us.

"Christine needs the experience of being read to on a daily basis. Can you help? Can you find the time to read to her every day after school and to listen to her read?"

Thus Mrs. Long and I began a series of telephone conversations during which we spoke about helping Christine with her reading and story writing. In November, Christine started dictating stories to her mother who was typing them on the home computer. By January Christine was beginning to type them herself and bring them to the daily editing conferences which occurred right after opening exercises.

In June Mr. and Mrs. Long acted on the advice of our school psychologist and told Christine that she would move from the French Immersion to the regular English programme next year. She was crying when she announced the news to me.

I suggested, "Why don't you go to the computer and write your parents and me a letter in which you describe the situation from your point of view?"

These are the words as they appeared on the computer screen after she had written the first draft:

Everyone is saying that I'm going to Inglish class. But I sort of don't want to and I sort of do but I feel that I will not get to do homework with them or I won't get to work with them in class time. I sort of want to be in your class to and by the way Andy dose not want me to go into Inglish and Jennifer said I dont have too . But I don't like the idea that it will be a perament moove. If I go into Inglish I will never bet back in Frach again. And my parents said if you still want to work with me then they said maybe that I can stay in Freach. By the way if I want to stay in Frach shoold I start to by French books? And watch French Tv? If I go into Inglish will you still help me with my writing?
Christine

"Mr. Meiers, the note is printing! Will you read it now?"

"Yes, bring it to my desk and we'll talk."

I read the note, thought and replied slowly, "Christine, you will still be in the same school next year, even if you go into the English programme and if it's O.K. with your mom and dad, I will still help you with your story writing next year." In ten months Christine had made remarkable progress from her "Pooh Bear Story" to this account of her situation. I believe that Christine improved her literacy skills for several reasons.

1. She eagerly accepted my invitation to put literacy "on the front burner" and focussed her intellectual resources and much time on the project of improving her reading and writing skills.
2. She willingly engaged in daily reading/writing conferences with her teacher, peers and parents. Not only was Christine a diligent student she also worked in a supportive environment. Nearly all the students in the class were highly engaged in writing projects and willingly helped each other.
3. Christine found her reading and writing projects meaningful, engaging and challenging, or, as she put it, "fun."

At the beginning of the following school year I extended an invitation to all the children in Christine's English-track classroom to contribute to an Anthology of short stories my students were preparing. Christine jumped at the opportunity and left the first three chapters of The Attack of the Green Slime on my desk the following morning. During my "prep" I read it, wrote a response and met Christine in her classroom.

"Christine, this is a great start. I really want to know what happens next. How long are you going to make me wait?"

"I probably need two or three days for the next chapters."

"Please, look at my comments, read them to me and tell me what you think." A silence. A smile. She reached for her story.

Her eyes scanned the pages.

"Mr. Meiers, you liked it, didn't you?"

"Yessss!" "I'll read you the comments and then we talk?"

"Absolutely."

Christine started reading them to me. After our discussion of my comments and questions she promised to write the "next chapters" and place them in my mail box, as soon as possible. In fact, they are waiting for me now where she promised to leave them.

In a nutshell, how are these narratives informing and shaping my ongoing inquiry? The classroom stories I have collected here allow me to construct a tentative understanding of children's learning experiences and my role in facilitating them. I have constructed narratives as a way of entering into the every day classroom reality of my students. Hannah Arendt writes,

It is true that story telling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining, that it brings about consent and reconciliation with things as they really are, and that we may even trust it to contain eventually by implication that last words which we expect from "the day of judgment". And yet... we cannot help becoming aware of how the slightest misunderstanding, the slightest shift of emphasis in the wrong direction, will inevitably ruin everything (Arendt, 1983: 147).

A meaningful way of bringing order to the chaos of intersecting and interfering purposes of human activity in the classroom is to engage students in an ongoing conversation which approximates or approaches what Arendt calls the dialogue of thought. I say this because I have come to believe that the construction of meaningful purposes occurs in such conversation of engaged participants who view themselves as participants in a coherent narrative of meaningful behaviour. Thus the students and I construct the stories of our actions to bring meaning and order to our classroom lives.

Hannah Arendt 1983 Men in Dark Times. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company.

Hannah Arendt 1977 The Life of the Mind. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company.

Martin Heidegger 1959 An Introduction to Metaphysics. New Haven and London.

Martin Heidegger 1962 Being and Time. San Francisco: Harper & Row.

Martin Heidegger 1992 History of the Concept of Time. Indianapolis: University of Indiana.

Michael Oakeshott 1991 Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. Indianapolis: Liberty Press.