"Discussion as a Way of Teaching" by Stephen Brookfield

Stephen Brookfield’s “Discussion as a Way of Teaching” is a read that is able to be used in the classroom directly. Therefore, I think it would be very helpful to have in available to me as a classroom tool. However, some of the content seemed rather self-explanatory to me. I could do without the pages on Why Discussions Fail, and the Discussion Ground Rules. Both of those seemed obvious and superfluous. Despite all this, I find that the many different forms of group discussions that Brookfield provides within the article, it would be easy to keep lessons interesting and new for my students, even if we engage in group discussions on a regular basis. It would also help me determine which sort of discussion style is the most appropriate for the topic at hand. Another aspect that I appreciated about Brookfield’s article is that he specifically talks about students who are hesitant to speak in the classroom and why it is important that they do speak and specific strategies to get them more comfortable and confident with speaking up. It is important to me that all my students feel comfortable enough in my classroom to share their thoughts, and I didn’t really have any specific ideas about how to go about achieving that. I specifically liked the speech policy tool, in which the classroom is silent until someone feels brave enough to speak up after the teacher establishes that it's okay to not speak. I think when we are hesitant to do something, and become required to do so, the participation becomes disingenuous and shallow. To me, it is far more important that what is said isn’t pointless and is intentional and necessary and thought provoking. I believe that speech policy encourages authentic discussion and participation from unlikely speakers.  All in all, “Discussion as a Way of Teaching” was a useful read that I intend on using in my English Language Arts classroom.