CASTING LONG SHADOWS

		What are the effects of my 
	         interventions in classroom discussion?

	This paper is an investigation of what happened in two lessons when 5E and I were in the last week of a series of planned lessons concerning the novel by John Steinbeck, "Of Mice and Men". It was the stage of the programme I had devised where I was trying to encourage 
	them to reflect on their tacit thinking about the book and the characters in particular. I had to plan a three week sequence of work because in the fifth year, which is taught in mixed ability groups, we have a very tightly organised schedule of courses for potential O level candidates to attend. These courses are for enrichment purposes. There was one such course in the week following the lessons I am about to discuss. Thus, I had to fit my lessons into a three week period so that 5E would be in the same position as  the rest of the 5th year. This is one constraint on my practice: I would have liked more time to pursue some of the loose ends left  after the work on the novel, an O level literature set book incidentally. It is one of our department policies that ALL 5th year students read "Of Mice and Men", again a constraint on my practice in that I have no choice in the matter of teaching the book. On the  other hand, it is a book that I enjoy teaching and I have a free hand in the process of teaching it. I think I would probably teach  it even if it was not a set book.

	Now, where do I begin? 

	Well, how about this.....I value 

	"rational discussion as a potentially fruitful way of coming to know. That is I value the "interpretation" mode of teaching, where individuals can make sense of things in their own ways." (Larter 1985)

	First of all, I would like to say that putting a linguistic box around my ideas does not satisfy me. I feel that I have to show what I mean. I DO value rational discussion, and I think it is important to say it, but I feel that to fully explain what this means I need to explore what it means in practice and explain further in dialogue.  

		DISCUSSION: AN ATTEMPTED EXPLANATION. 

	In a conversation with Alan Skelton, a colleague from the University of Bath, in which we were discussing the meaning of my list of  values from the BERA paper, I said rational discussion is when 

	"you enter into dialogues with other people (..) and in those dialogues you become more critical of your own views, more critical of other people's views and in that way you can contemplate different forms of knowledge and approach wisdom."

	REAL discussion to me, then, is when two or more people are involved in a conversation in which all participants negotiate meaning,  interpretation and understanding and, as a result, develop their thinking.

		CONCERNS

	The questions I now want to address are:  Just exactly what is "classroom discussion" and why bother with it?

	Is it POSSIBLE for discussion to occur in the classroom? 

	How do I understand/recognise that improvement has taken place? 

	What is my role in discussion?

	Why is discussion sometimes successful and other times unsuccessful?

	As I am committed, from a value position, to fostering classroom discussion, these are crucial questions, for me.

	In an attempt to answer some of these questions, I turned to theory and discovered that in "Communication and Learning in Small Groups," Barnes and Todd suggest 

	"...four categories of collaborative moves: initiating, eliciting, extending, and qualifying."

	These moves are umbrella terms for 

	"initiating discussion of a new issue

	qualifying another person's contribution implicitly accepting a qualification

	extending a previous contribution

	asking for an illustration to test a generalisation

	providing an example

	using evidence to test an assertion

	reformulating one's own previous assertion

	obtaining information from others

	completing unfinished utterances

	encouraging others to continue   

	inviting others to contribute

	repeating with modifications

	supporting another's assertion with evidence." (Barnes and Todd 1977)  

         I would not expect all these to be	occurring every time
	there is a discussion for it to count as a good  discussion. However useful in terms of describing classroom discussion they may be, they do not really help me to understand what counts as improvement or why I should bother with discussion in the first place. With this in mind, I had a discussion with Alan Howe, presently Director of the Wiltshire Oracy Project, and tape-recorded it. In the course of this discussion, we agreed that, 

	"a good discussion is characterised by....taking it seriously .... doing it without constant intervention .... time on task .... co-operation .... questioning, elucidation, extending and deepening responses, pausing for thought, following an idea through, drawing ideas to gether, synthesising, injecting a new idea."(Taped conversation 14th November 1985) 

	This is helpful but I do not feel that this has moved me that far away from Barnes and Todd's descriptive categories. 

	There was also this, which I found very provocative at the time I read it. 

	"discussion changes into debate once personality becomes the dominant theme. Then the aim is to defeat and to win, and this is accom panied by the sense of elation at winning and of dejection at losing. Discussion is, by contrast, detached. The discussion itself ma tters rather than the outcome; in effect, it is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake....It is the shared internalizing of every body's point of view, of the various riders and refinements and reservations, by all the participants, that distinguishes discussion ....from the debate, or the argument, or the friendly chat." (Chilver and Gould 1982) 

	Why did I find this provocative?

	First of all, it fits in quite snugly with my own statement (see above). I agreed with what Chilver and Gould had to say. Also, they were saying something which I felt to be a truism yet seems not to be covered in many of the texts I have read, including their own . I am referring to peer group pressure. It seems to be a great constraint on classroom discussion. I would like to explore this and other constraints now.

		PROBLEM AND IMAGINED SOLUTION

	How do I teach a book like "Of Mice and Men" which I know well? How do I prevent the students' ideas from being influenced by mine?  Why is it important that they are not influenced in this way?

	I had been reading two texts which were particularly influential at the time, "Versions of English" by Barnes, Barnes and Clarke and "Unlocking Mind Forg'd Manacles" by John Dixon and Leslie Stratta. These led me to thinking about the teaching of literature in a s lightly different way. To start with Barnes, Barnes and Clarke suggest three phases in the process of understanding texts. These are first encounter, reflection and writing. This made sense to me in terms of classroom practice. We read books together, think about  them and order our thoughts into a coherent form. This is a well-worn pattern. However,it seemed to me that the examples cited in "V ersions of English" were pretty dismal examples where all students had to do was step into the teacher's system of meanings to be su ccessful. There was little attempt to foster discussion, contemplate different forms of knowledge or anything. It seemed that this was "right-answerism" at its very worst. When I consider the meaning and pleasure I have gained from discussing texts, I cringe to think that most of the teachers in the "Versions of English" research denied their students the opportunities to do likewise. Teachers seem to have a fear of allowing students to make their own meanings overtly in the classroom yet, as Stratta and Dixon say, 

	"Reading  is  a  creative  act, whereby  the individual reader uses the printed words to construct an imaginary experience....and this im aginary experience depends on the thoughts, feelings and relationships readers can actively bring to bear from their own personal lives." (Stratta and Dixon 1985)

	Or Barnes (1976)

	"To understand the problems faced by learners we have to know not only the tasks presented to them from the teachers point of view b ut also what in their existing view of things will have to be changed in order to cope with the new knowledge, or solve a new proble m. In one sense only the learner himself has this information, and he does not know he knows it. This is why it is important for the learner to talk or write or otherwise represent the problem to himself, and why his active participation is crucial." 

	In other words, we all make sense of things our own way in the end, so why not allow the students to think about things in their own way to start with? It is the spoken aspect of this representation Barnes speaks of which concerns and interests me most. If I can discover what the students' concerns are then there is some reason to believe that I can encourage them to reflect on these concerns.
	 
	This causes problems of a different pedagogical kind. What if the sense they make is wrong? How do you manage the classroom under such a regime? These questions are quite legitimate. They are questions asked every working day by teachers. Also, they conform to Hargreaves's notion that there are two main roles all teachers must act: the instructional role and the disciplinary role. (Hargreaves, D. 1975) 

	First of all, I cannot believe that the sense made of a literary text can be completely wrong. It may be different from mine but that is something entirely different. I believe that we interpret experiences in light of all our previous experiences. It seems to me  that there IS such a thing as inter-subjectivity which is reached through discussion and a genuine sharing of views (Chilver and Gould op cit) But this inter-subjectivity can ONLY be reached through discussion. 

	On 8th September 1985, I wrote in my journal: "Why is it important that students are encouraged to make their own
	meanings from the initial encounter with a text onwards?

	- it allows them to form their own understanding 

	- first encounter then jotting randomly doesn't fuse the first stage with the second stage of a more considered, critical reflection.

	- it doesn't mean that their reading and understanding is structured by the teacher's meaning." 

	Thus, I asked them to write their thoughts about each chapter in their journals, as we finished reading it together. For me this cor responded to Barnes, Barnes and Clarke's notion of the "first phase" of working on a
	text. This was the students' first encounter with it. Mind you, I can now see that writing their thoughts down
	is part of the "second phase": a more critical reflection. By just writing, we slow the process of thinking down and speed it up at the same time - we can hardly get one thought down on paper before development of that thought is available. After this writing, I had a couple of lessons where I encouraged discussion of their thoughts. What I wanted to happen was for the students to develop their own thinking and then for them
	to bring ideas to a symposium-like  group where they could try them out in public.

	Sadly, my first attempt to video record such a session on 24th September 1985 failed because there was some technical problem. However Alan Skelton was in for the session and we were able to talk about the events of the
	lesson later that night. Alan had felt that  he had not witnessed the students listening to each other very much
	during the lesson. I did not entirely disagree because there had appeared to be a certain amount of hilarity during the lesson: some of the class had not treated the
	activity that seriously. What  I wanted them to do was: 

	"Find about a page of the book which, for you, is a good example of events and relationships in "Of Mice and Men". If you find it useful, imagine you are using this chunk as a way of recommending the book to a friend.After you have chosen, read the chunk through a couple of times and note down  in your journal why you chose the piece." (My journal  23rd September 1985)

	My reasons for doing this were:

	"....because I want them to look back into the book, still making sense of it in their own ways, although I'm
	offering a framework within which they may work. I agree with Dixon and Stratta's views about writing attempting to reflect the reading process, so on Monday night I'll have to prompt their thinking for writing on Tuesday. I hope this will provide opportunities for them to write a
	good piece, after some discussion at the start of Tuesday's lesson. Wednesday's lesson will then be aimed at me guiding them to think about issues they have not thought  about or just touched on. I'd like this to be about 45 minutes of small group / whole class discussion. Then I'll offer some writing possibilities which they can start then to be finished by the following Monday (30.9.85)" (Journal 23rd September 1985) 

	What had actually happened was that they had not completed the task on 23rd so 24th was intended to round
	it all off. However, although I changed my planned activities to allow them to finish their choosing, I still wanted to encourage small group discussion. So,  when they had chosen their own bit, I asked them to decide, in small groups, on one extract they felt was the best suited to the group's ideas about the book. I thought this would encourage them to think of reasons for their own selections in a more realistic way  than just asking them to "note down" in their journals why they had chosen their particular extract. I told them that I'd then get them to form a circle to report to the
	whole class what they had chosen and why. It meant that instead of doing my homework on Monday night I'd have to
	do it on Tuesday instead.

	However, it didn't work. ("The best laid plans of mice and men?") On reflection, perhaps I approached this part
	of the work on the novel wrongly. I think I was asking them too much to choose their own bit of the novel, say why they thought it important, argue it out in two different groups and then write about it. It seems daft,
	at this time five months on, to ask them to justify their choices at all. 

	Why did I not stick to my original plan of having them write about their piece?

	I think that it was because I was a slave to my own theory - you talk before you write, writing floats on a sea of talk, that kind of thing. Perhaps in this case I was wrong. I said above that I STILL wanted them to talk
	about their selections - this is significant for me. I think I have a tendency to be somewhat inflexible in my approach to a lesson or sequence of lessons after I have
	planned them. This is something I will have to work on later. There was also the problem raised by Alan - if they were not  listening to each other, then how could they be sharing ideas and developing their thinking? I have a feeling that the activity had become stale, that it had lost its importance, and, on top of all this, there was the tendency to talk not to the ideas but past
	them and at the personalities of those who had the ideas.

	What does this mean?

	The "pecking order" of the classroom and peer group pressure exerts a massive influence on what goes on in the classroom. Thus you tend to get students who tend not to listen to or even hold any regard for certain people's views simply because it is that particular person voicing them. So it is not the views that are important but the personalities. 

	I had sensed that things were not quite right on 24th September. 5E come to English from maths where they are not taught as a mixed- ability tutor group but in sets according to achievement. English is also last lesson of
	the day and I often think that these factors combine to influence my lessons negatively. However, my relationship with the class is generally very good - but
	I feel that things were not quite right on that particular day. There was a hilarity in the air which did not seem to encourage the work ethic.

	That evening Alan and I discussed the lesson and a possible solution. He felt that I should talk to the whole class and voice my feelings of dissatisfaction. I was not entirely convinced about this idea because I KNOW that not all the students had been hilarious:  I had joined in some very interesting discussion. However,
	I had to admit that something had to be done about the general level of commitment to the task of making sense of the book. First of all, my value of encouraging discussion in a symposium-like setting was  being denied, so I therefore felt I had to do something about encouraging real discussion. There was also my concern that they were  not gaining much from the lessons and would not be able to produce very good talk or writing on the book. 

	This seems like one of those dilemmas that teachers often face. In fact, Harold Rosen once said that teaching is a series of dilemmas. I think he was right in this judgement. What did I do to attempt to solve this problem of the students not listening to each other? It is not that they were not listening to each other but that they were not thinking about what was said that is really bothering me, isn't it?

	Yes and in conjunction with Alan, I decided that I would talk to the class at the start of the next lesson. However, as a "safety-valve" for the annoyance that I knew some of them would feel, I made sure that there was
	scope for them to say what they felt - I built into the lesson a time for writing in their journals about what I
	had to say. I was not happy about this "up front" statement from me. On one hand, it might reinforce the value I was putting on the spoken word but on the other hand, I was certain  that it would appear that I was telling the whole class off. I also realised that something had to be said to give them a chance of really
	discussing the book and their ideas. There was also the concern from "the distant drummer" (Nias 1983) about my own values. It was the tension between these factors which led me to think that I had to say something. Here is what I said.

	"I'd like to start off today's lesson by having a chat about yesterday really (..) I wasn't all that pleased with the way things went yesterday. Erm. When I got back
	home last night I spent most of the evening talking with Mr. Skelton over there about what went on . We both came
	to the conclusion that what wasn't happening yesterday what I wanted to happen and I felt you are capable of doing wa s actually listening to each other. Listening to what you've got to say about some of those issues that I tried to raise with you yesterday. That wasn't happening as much as it seems to me from memories of things I've recorded from you in the past that you are capable of doing. I mean some of you aren't even listening to me now. For instance. (Pause) Now if you're
	not even prepared to listen at that kind of level then the kind of listening that I'm talking about where you listen to what somebody else has got to say about an issue and then think about it in your own mind before you say anything isn't going to go on. It could be I think that this is the  start of the fifth year and we're getting back into the routines and things like that. But I was very disappointed with the way you  were
	working yesterday. (Pause) There's rather too much of that banter going on (..) Now that's not the whole story
	because there were obviously times yesterday when you were listening to each other and thinking about what you
	were saying otherwise you wouldn't have been able to get all those answers together you wouldn't have been able to sit in the circle and contribute to what was going on. Now what I want you to do during this lesson is to think more carefully about what other people are saying.
	Don't just  listen to them but think about what they're saying. Everybody anybody. Doesn't matter who it is. They can actually have something to say which   is worth
	listening to. Once you've thought about it I think then you can reject what they're saying but don't reject it just because of who's saying it which seems to be happening some of the time. (Pause) Now as I was saying earlier on I was quite disappointed yesterday when I started thinking about what went on in the lesson and I think some of the blame for that lies with me. But I think also that some of the blame does lie with you and I'd like you to think about that." 

		DISCUSSION 

	This is an attempt to tell the class that although I was unhappy with their performance on one day, it was an unfortunate incident.  Why don't we just forget it and get back to our normal routine? What do I think is the effect?  

	Looking back now, I cringe at this. That is not because of what I said but the WAY in which I said it. It is very much teacher-talk  of a kind that sets the tone in a very dominant way. There is no recognition that the students can't stand the company of some of the people that they are being exhorted to listen to. Why should they listen to them? It is a very difficult thing for any of us to li sten to what someone says whose opinion we do not value and whom we do not like. Nevertheless, if discussion is going to take place  this is one of the
	prerequisites. 

	Well what is wrong with making that plain? It is part of a teacher's job to influence what is learned and the way
	in which it is learned. Even if I deny this, how do I avoid it? 

	The roles we play are not only of our own making but are strongly influenced by those  with whom we interact. Learning and teaching are not always pleasant activities. Transcribing tapes is quite boring, for instance, but what I have learned as a result of doing this necessary activity is invaluable. Likewise, the racist poem incident was not exactly a fun affair but I learned a lot from it. Thus, perhaps talking about my disappointments to the whole of 5E was necessary, if unpl easant. If nothing else, perhaps it allowed them to
	see that I am a human-being like them, with hopes and aspirations and that sometimes people let me down.

	Did they see this though?

	Some of them did. Some of them did not care. That is another thing about teaching - you have to be prepared for a number of different responses to you. Sometimes that hurts. Sometimes you hurt them. Katherine and Sukminder were both upset by what I said. Katherine wrote, 

	"We did do what you asked. OK we were a bit noisey but we did talk about it."

	Sukminder wrote similarly,

	"Our table didnt spend all our time talking about it and we did have some laughs but we did talk about our choices."

	Here's what Keith had to say,

	"If you want us to talk properly just make sure that XXXXX XXXXX does'nt say anything!" 

        From just these	three responses it is possible to see that there was a range of responses to my speech. The indignant feel of the two girls' thoughts was what I had
	expected from them because they HAD worked pretty well. I wrote back and said that I was sorry if I 'd offended them but that my speech was not really aimed at them. Katherine even suggested that I try the circle idea more
	often because if they got used to working in that way, they might find it useful. Keith is still unable to see beyond the personality of the  speaker though. I am at a
	loss about this because it is not in my power to make people like each other! It reinforces my point that  one
	of the massive constraints working against classroom talk is the very people who make up the group, i.e. the class and the teacher.

	Most of the class responded to my speech in ways not unlike those I've already quoted. In some cases, I felt that they were indignant without much ground for being so - I replied by telling them that I was not pleased with their performance. But there was another  kind of response - one group of lads wrote either nothing, in Peter's case, or just paraphrased what I'd said, as in Chris's case. What do I make of all this?

	Their indifference indicates to me that they are less than enthusiastic about the things they are asked to do in lessons, another constraint. 

	During the evening's conversation with Alan, I decided to abandon the idea of them choosing, thinking about and
	writing about their  own extract and chose one myself.

	Why did I do this? Why change Wednesday's lesson?

	One reason was Alan's understanding of the lesson: that not very many of the class had done the choosing very well. What would be the point of carrying on with a lesson plan that a participant observer had said was not
	working? I decided to ditch it for other reasons too. I was conscious of the shadow of coursework looming large.
	"Of Mice and Men" is a book that our department teaches to ALL our students. It seems logical that we ought to try to get some good written work from the proceedings. In fact, it is an unwritten requirement that we work hard at the book to get TWO pieces of work from some students. This factor was in the back of my mind - I could not allow 5E to do things which their mates in other 5th year groups were not allowed to do. This I see
	as a necessary constraint formed by working as a team. I am answerable not only to myself and my students but to my colleagues. 

	Also, there was a course for all potential O level students to attend during the following two weeks. As a result of this planning,  again carried out with consultation involving the whole of the English team, I felt an urgency to complete the work on the first two phases of the book. In this way, they would only have the writing to complete on their own. Here's what I said
	on 25th September  at home. 

	"I'm conscious of coursework and courses looming for one thing but I feel that at this stage it is intellectually
	demanding and no bad thing to go public with your thoughts about something. I also felt that I wanted to build in some of the Dixon and Stratta ideas  about the creative reconstruction using knowledge of the book. So I put the writing ideas on the board with the usual exhortation for them to suggest their own idea if they wanted." 

	Looking back now this reads like I was panicking about teaching the book. Is this true? And was that a hint of being a slave to theo ry I detect there?

	Probably "yes" on both counts! I did think that we had not covered enough ground to allow them to produce good quality writing or spoken coursework. I felt that there was insufficient time to allow REAL thinking to go on. Although the novel is a set book for O level, I am at liberty to teach it any way I choose. But this does not remove the constraint that it is a set book. I feel that
	I must  plan a sequence of lessons which will allow the students the maximum chance to make sense of it otherwise I would be foolish. I cannot deny that examinations exist and that I must organise my teaching to cater for them in some way. 

	I was a slave to theory in this case too, I think. Dixon and Stratta's ideas are very good ideas I think and I will use them again.  It remains for me to plot the space for them to really flourish though - the space seemed to disappear as I taught "Of Mice and Men" in September.

	After my talk to the whole class, I put some things on the blackboard for them to discuss and make notes on. First of all we read pp 49-52 in the Windmill edition of
	Steinbeck's book. This is a powerful and, in my view, crucial passage, where Candy's dog is shot. 

	"Discuss your reactions as you read the extract.  What impressions do you form of the atmosphere? 
	How well do Candy and Slim cope with their problems?"

	So I chose the pasage for study. Was  this helpful?

	I think it provided a framework of a kind. Paradoxically, I think that what I'd discovered was that
	if you provide some framework like this the students seem to have more scope for making it their own. What I mean is that by giving them the bit to study, I was saying that this is a good bit now you tell me how you respond to it. I think they had more scope to do this now that they had the confidence of knowing that the passage they were working on was, from my point of view,
	an important one. 

	Am I saying that these students are not capable of independent study?

	No. What I am saying is that I think they are not accustomed to having that much freedom. The paradox is that they seem to NEED a framework to step into so that they can make sense of something confidently. I am not suggesting that they need spoon-feeding but that  they perhaps need weaning into the idea that THEY know what meaning a poem or novel or painting or anything has for them better than I do. Who am I to tell them what to think? I realised that what I should have been doing was
	to act as a guide to  "Of Mice and Men" - I know the book well and thus I tried to offer this expertise to them. However, it is a difficult thing to balance the activities of the classroom so that, while attempting to
	create an environment in which discussion may flourish, I may unwittingly cast them a drift and disorient them. While I may make inforded guesses as to what will be helpful, I cannot predict with any real accuracy what will confuse and what will help. This depends on variables like the weather, the day's events, personal relations and so on. I have no control on students' moods. I DO know them reasonably well and I think I get on reasonably well with them but even so this is not the
	whole story of their school lives. 
	What happened during the rest of this lesson? Did this allow the students the chance to make their own sense of the passage?

	I don't think my first two questions caused many problems but the third one caused confusion and consternation.

	Does this imply that my attempts to help the students actually became hindrances?

	In a way. First of all my instructions for what I wanted them to do were amazing! On the board I put "NOTE DOWN your reactions as you read...." when I wanted them to DISCUSS! I have no idea why I wrote this - I think it was in my mind from the Dixon and Stratta paper. There was some confusion about whether they should write things down. I kept insisting they only talk because I was trying to foster the idea of LISTENING to each other. Listening to the soundtrack of the lesson makes me realise that the students had grounds  for their confusion and looking at the pictures helps me to see their confusion. 

	However the activity got under way. Here are some of my discussions with some of the students during the lesson. (All these transcriptions are taken from the soundtrack of the video shot in my classroom on 25th September 1985.)

	My first conversation was with Simon. 

		TRANSCRIPT

	Simon: What's Slim's problem? I can't even see that he had a problem.

	AL: Well look carefully then Simon. You look carefully cos I think there is a problem in there that Slim's got yeah.

	Simon: Is it what Crooks says?

	AL: No. Well maybe. Have a look. Have a look. I'll come back in a few minutes to see if I can help you with that one. 

		DISCUSSION 

	First of all, I think that Slim had a problem. I think his problem is that he must live with a very difficult decision about the dog being shot, which he made contrary to the desires of Candy. The episode tells us a great deal about Slim's character - he is not the Clint Eastwood kind of figure. He thinks a good deal about the feelings of Candy, the humble cleaner, despite being the "king of the ranch." It was this kind of thinking that I wanted them to get into. How does Slim feel at this point in the book? Simon did not  recognise any problem except the one raised by Crooks - one of the mules had a bad hoof.

	On looking at this short conversation between Simon and I, it is apparent that he is trying to find out what is in my mind and I am  not letting him into the secret. Why does this go on?

	I think Edwards and Furlong are helpful here. They say, 
	"Being taught usually means suspending your own interpretations of the subject matter and searching out what the teacher means. Thus the very process of learning demonstrates and maintains the authority relationship, because the pupil is nearly always attempting to move into the teacher's world of meanings. The pupil's suspension of his own interpretation may be so complete that if he cannot understand what the material means to the teacher, then it becomes literally meaningless for himself."  

	I must say that I find this quite frightening. Does Simon really rely on me so much? It would appear that he does. Is this my fault or his own?

	It is not appropriate to talk in terms of the thing being someone's "fault" - it is much more complex than this. First of all, is it something that happens all the time? Here is another conversation with Simon on the same day. 

		TRANSCRIPT

	"AL: Right now then Simon.

	S: Is it something to do with one of the horse's hooves? I mean his mood.

	AL: It's a horse? And his mood? What's his problem then?

	S: (inaudible)

	AL: Right. That's one of his problems. OK. (pause) How well does he cope with that then?

	S: He just showed that he knew how.

	AL: What does he say? Can you find that bit? OK then it's er why does he say it so loudly? And his voice trail off at the end. After he says it it's all very quiet. Why does he say it loud? Do you think.

	S: To break the silence?

	AL: And why does he want to break the silence?

	S: To let everyone know he's a good bloke.

	AL: Could be [..] so he wants to break the silence after that.

	S: As far as the shooting's concerned [..] he wants to help.

	AL: He wants to help yeah but it's an embarrassed silence. Now why does he want to break that silence?

	S: (inaudible)

	AL: OK now what's Slim's problem then? 

	The game of cat and mouse continues. In this short space of time, I ask eleven questions! This is not discussion as I notionally defined it earlier. Why do I ask so many questions?

	It seems that some are asked to prompt Simon to check that he means what he says, some to encourage him to probe into the text, some seek clarification. The questions Simon himself asks are ones which, in a defensive way, ask me if he is right in what he thinks. All the questions in this brief conversation are asked with the intention of checking or matching Simon's thinking with mine. In other words, he really does accept my authority in terms of what counts as knowledge in the classroom. Now is this a help or a hindrance ?

	That's a difficult question to answer. Listening to the recording and reading the transcript leads me to believe that I was not being particularly helpful in the exchanges. This is not an example of symposium-like discourse: one of the participants, me, asks a barrage of questions, not with the aim of finding out where we are before we begin, but with the purpose of testing the other person's  knowledge in relation to my own. The effect of this is to put Simon in a position of ignorance and subservience to me. The authority relationship is obvious. My concern is that I set out to avoid doing it! It seems to me that what is happening in the exchange is that Simon has made his own sense of the extract from the book ("I can't even see that he had a problem.") but that I do not allow that to stand. In other words, it is I who says what counts as learning and THEY who must attempt to find out what this is. It is like trying to catch a bar of soap.

	But I'm being unreasonable here. Slim DID have a problem and it is part of my job to foster deeper, more critical thinking. How can  I do this but by questioning? And at least I managed to find out what Simon needed help with.

	I suppose this is right in some way. Simon and I do not "assume a reciprocity of perspectives." (Edwards and Furlong op cit) There is no way that Simon has the same perspective as me anyway - we are completely different people. It seems to me that the same perspective has to be achieved and this involves him moving towards whatever I will accept and validate. Geoff Whitty would appear to be right in his assertion, using Foucault, that "what teachers teach is not knowledge [but] preferred discourses", which are inscribed within institutions and everyday practices." (Whitty 1985)

	This is further complicated by my feeling that he did need help. Had I, for instance, said, "Fair enough," and just walked away, Sim on would have felt himself stupid and that I did not care what he thought. Is this one of those institutionally inscribed practices  Whitty speaks of?

	It appears to be. There are two further complications in my mind at this point. There is Peter Woods' idea, mentioned in Andy Hargreaves' paper "Synthesis and the Study of Strategies", that "there is often a total separation in schools between two kinds of control : SOCIAL control and SITUATIONAL control." Woods argues that these two are completely autonomous. I prefer to see them as dialectically linked. My insistence to Simon that Slim had a problem marked for me at the time that I was controlling the text and what counted as  knowledge. (I must add that he was not the only one who could not see the problem: Bernard and Trevor could not, neither could Karen , Mary, Marjorie or Baljit.) My insistence could be read at the level of "teacher survival" where I had to assert my authority in knowing and mediating this knowledge to the students. On the other hand, it could be read in a much wider context. The authority vested in me by the state, the local education authority, the school and in the interpersonal relations of the classroom make me a powerful figure indeed. I can decide that Simon is failing because he does not see things my way or I can give him credit for trying. Mind you, "tries hard" on a report is usually a patronising and damning comment! Still, it helps me to demonstrate that even in a small  incident like this one in my own classroom, it is possible to see that what is in evidence is ideology becoming hegemonic in the sen se that Simon's statement that he could not see Slim's problem was made to conform to authority.  

	There is also the problem of what he thought of the exchanges. He failed to write in his journal or mention in interview what he felt. Perhaps he saw nothing significant in the talk, seeing it as another chat with a teacher who was trying to put him right. There is evidence that this somewhat cynical view is perhaps a little unfounded though. When Katherine was interviewed by Alan, she said, 

		TRANSCRIPT

	"He (i.e. me) listens to what you have to say and then he takes it further you know by asking you makes you think about what you've  said. Makes you so you really understand it instead of just saying it and then passing it over (..) if you've got a point of view and someone else in the room's got a different one he can sort of reason with it so that you like agree in the end (..) by taking the other person's point (..) you sort of think again about what you said.

	AS: Yeah.

	K: So you're reasoning with him sort of thing.

	AS: What about his own views? You know because you're telling me that he's reacting to your views (..) and just helping you with your views or somebody else's (..) I think if I was wanting a group of people to discuss something (..) I'd probably want people in there that've got their own ideas as well about things erm

	K: (interrupting) Yeah but when he's discussing something with him it's not usually his views (..) that we discuss. He just helps us (..) He'll tell us his views yeah and then find out if we agree find out what we think." (Tape recorded interview 20th November 1985) 

	This is interesting because I think that I ask too many questions in the classroom. Katherine thinks that this is a helpful thing to do. Her assertion is that I help her to think deeper about issues. I do not feel confident at all that Simon feels the same. In the first conversation above, I leave him to it on his own. On my return, I do attempt to help Simon to explore the text but it is the  kind of exploration for which the terrain has already been mapped out. There is not much scope for him to make the text his own. On  the other hand, he was working with a partner and together they were working on the task. This means that there was the possibility  that they made some shared sense of it. I have no idea because I did not record them except when I was there. However, here is a transcript of two girls discussing the same things on the same day in the same classroom. 

		TRANSCRIPT 

	Nancy: How do you think Candy's feeling first of all? That bloke with the dog when they were on about shooting it and that.

	Margaret: I think he's upset and that because he's losing his dog. 

	N: Yeah but if you was him would you have give up and let them shoot him?

	M: No. (pause) What impressions do you form of the atmosphere?

	N: I think (pause) what was the question again? (pause) I think they feel uncomfortable cos none of 'em knows what to say to Candy.

	(..)

	M: So they're all just trying to make talk but none of 'em's really talking at all. How well do Candy and Slim cope with their probl ems? Candy's feeling a bit upset isn't he?

	N: (inaudible)

	M: Yeah I know but I said (pause) oh yeah.

	N: What did you think of Slim? How did he cope?

	M: Erm

	N: I think he could have offered him more sympathy than he did cos he didn't really console him or nothing did he cos it said in the book didn't it that he'd had the dog a long time. So he's bound to get upset when he shot him. He never gave him no consolation or  nothing. 

	These two really make the task their own. They use their own idiom and there is a genuine interest in what they are doing. There is  a willingness to share their ideas which is not evident in my talk with Simon. It is easy to explain this because they have more in  common than Simon and I. However, there is a lot of taken for granted meaning here. Margaret's statement "I think he's upset and that" is very vague and is glossed over by the pair of them. There is nothing more to say on the issue for them. They are not incorrect but they do not probe Candy's feelings in the way they probe Slim's behaviour. At the time I listened to this tape, I remember feeling a sense of elation because they had done something that I had not witnessed in the rest of the class - namely they attempt to understand Slim. I overlooked their superficial treatment of Candy. It seems to me that this is where Peter Woods' notion of "situational control" is useful. The situation of Simon and the others made me focus almost obsessively on the issue of Slim to the exclusion of other issues.  
		CONCLUDING REMARKS

	I would like to suggest that there are massive constraints on the students in 5E creating their own meanings in my classroom. One of these is the school itself. There is a disparity between teaching styles across the curriculum, ranging from, using Barnes' continuum, "transmission" to "interpretation". It seems to me that this is a crude continuum because there is an ever shifting tension between these two poles even in one lesson: look at Simon and I and then compare that with Nancy and Margaret. These two conversations occurred in the same lesson but I do not think they are at the same point on the continuum at all. Nevertheless, Barnes' idea will help me to make the point that the students are accustomed to a variety of teaching styles, most of which are closer to the "transmission" end than the "interpretation". Here is Sukminder talking to Alan: 

	"Some [teachers] are understanding and they care about your work y'know they help you a lot. But I mean some don't even bother with you and they don't get on well with the class (..)

	AS: Are there plenty of teachers that are understanding?

	S: I can't think of that many (..) we've got this new sociology teacher (..) she's completely different from our other teacher (..)  Mrs. Jackson she always used to have chats with us and have class discussions (..) but Mrs. Bell (..) she's just completely different it's a different way of teaching to Mrs. Jackson (..) but like typing she tells you off if you just start talking for a little while you're not allowed to talk in that (..) and you don't get a nice atmosphere going round the classroom." (Tape recorded interview 20th November 1985) 

	One  of the  criteria for the  "interpretation" mode is understanding of the students. Another is allowing them the space to make their own sense of things before the teacher joins in. It seems to me that what Sukminder says here is indicative of her experience of te aching which is mainly close to the "transmission" end of things. If the "transmission" mode of teaching is the norm, then there will be "right answers" controlled by the teacher. 

	This is not the whole story though. As I have already mentioned, it is difficult to tell where one mode ends and another begins and  there is likely to be more than one mode in operation at any one time. As a teacher, I take a great deal of problematic, intellectual clutter into the classroom with me. There is the problem of my understanding of the text, to start with. Usually it is one I have  taught before and thought about at length. Thus I think that I have justification for thinking that Slim has a problem. I feel that  it is part of my job to suggest this kind of thing. It is this kind of sensitivity of thinking that I am out to encourage through discussion. I have a knowledge of exam requirements in my mind - whatever I may say, it is there all the time, especially with a group like 5E who are in their exam year. I know that certain things are suitable for coursework and that students must be able to show t hat they can, for example, understand characterisation in a novel to get the better grades. I think that this acts as a constraint on my desire to promote the idea of students making their own sense of a text. 

	Exams and schools do not exist on their own, completely separate from anything. Nor does teachers' knowledge. In fact, I would argue that relationships of any kind CANNOT exist autonomously. There is, I believe, a dialectical tension between all these things and society itself. Here, I am in the terrain of ideology and hegemony. In many ways,I do not feel too hopeful about breaking these barriers to real learning down: the work of Gramsci and Althusser indicate that ideology and hegemony hold a powerful sway over us. (Gramsci 1971, Althusser 1969) The effect of these two complex concepts is, however, dialectical. On one hand, there is a powerful message transmitted by, for example, the medium of television that knowledge is the right answer to a question. Such quiz shows as "Mastermind" or "Blockbusters" indicate this to me. Yet at the same time there is a "contradictory consciousness" which contains common sense experience and "scientific ideas and philosophical opinions which have entered ordinary life." (Gramsci op cit) This means that 

        "The	terrain on which hegemony moves and functions has constantly to shift ground in order to accomodate the changing nature of historical circumstances and the demands and reflexive actions of human beings." (Giroux 1981) 

	How does the tension between objective and subjective hegemony manifest itself in my classroom?

	The complexity of answering this question is indicated by Andy Hargreaves in his 1980 paper. He says, 

         "The	task of the sociological imagination is to grasp the richness of personal and interpersonal experience ... and to document the  ways in which social structures impinge upon and partially shape the organisation of people's everyday lives." 

         So far in	this paper, I have made an attempt to "grasp the richness of personal and interpersonal experience", but not in a sociological way. I have done this in an educational way. The main purpose of this study has been to understand the process of education in  my own classroom with a view to attempting to improving it. So, what have I learned which will help me to improve classroom practice ?

	First of all, I set up the context in which most of the events take place. Although I tried to open discussions about the meanings in "Of Mice and Men", it seems that, in most cases this did not happen or that it happened sporadically. mind you, as Barnes says, 

	"the very presense of a teacher alters the way in which pupils use language, so that they are more likely to be aiming at "answers"  which will gain approval than using language to reshape knowledge....Teachers should avoid on the one hand a teacher domination that discourages pupils from active learning, and on the other the abandonment of pupils of pupils to their own devices." (Barnes 1977)

	This, for me, is the delicate linguistic game that Simon and I were playing. I do not think that I played it particularly well. However, I do not think it is a very easy thing to encourage someone accustomed to the kind of learning environment Sukminder talks about to probe their own thoughts more deeply. I believe that encouraging students to discuss in small groups with their friends but still being on hand for concerns like those of Simon and all the others is close to Barnes' advice because the students have a chance to make their own sense of things and yet I have not abandoned them to their own devices. I am still able to show that I care. Of course, I am pleased that it happened in the case of Nancy and Margaret to some extent and it seems to me that I need to build on this  experience and the unrecorded conversations which went on in the lessons. The demand I placed on some of the students' discussions appears to me to have had positive results. How can I put this demand on the thinking and language of all the students so that there  is improvement in their sensitivity and language?

	Linked to this is the question of gender. I observed on the film of this lesson that I tended to spend more time in discussion with  a particular group of girls. This seems to me to have the effect of diminishing the importance of discussion to some of the others in the classroom, particularly, as Alan Skelton noticed, one group of boys who spent less time "on task". How can I use this insight  to improve the process of learning for both groups of students? Could it be that the girls do better than the boys in my lessons?

	For my next project I will try the following:

	-Attempt to talk with more students: spend less time with that group of girls and more time with the boys, in an attempt to raise the status of their activities in their eyes. 

	-Discover whether Barnes and Todd's idea that students can produce good discussions and learn just as well, if not better, without the presence of the teacher.

	-Attempt to discover ways of placing demands on students' language without expecting them to step into my own frame of reference.

	-Try to discover whether there is a gender or social class difference in orientation to the lessons.

	-Work at ways of understanding better how my reading of theory affects classroom practice and my understanding of that practice.