Tired of the same conversation stunting responses? Let’s try something a bit different.
Students who are excited about school, are more engaged and create greater learning opportunities. This enthusiasm can be fuelled at home, but we won’t get the job done by simply asking ‘How was school?’...
‘Good’, ‘Fine’, ‘Meh’. That’s it. Conversation over, and with it, curiosity and a deeper interaction about learning.
How can we circumnavigate the dull response? Well, first, we could try a different question.
If something exciting happened, you might get a different reply. However, the question is still closed.
It might be true, hopefully not. Either way, it invites a one word response and only a follow up will get more info.
There could have been an event, or a special occurrence to elicit a more animated answer. But we’re still not inviting dialogue.
Starting a more involved conversation might feel a bit like a trick. We need to hack into a level of curiosity.
Open conversation starters are great.
X could be a friend, teacher, book character or subject.
Model engagement with school to gain insights. Read the newsletter, chat with teachers, talk with other caregivers, sneak a peek at upcoming assignments, briefly research concepts being explored in class.
Now we can spark intrigue and raise eyebrows by injecting specificity using context. We don’t need to be experts in any topics, just show interest.
Prompt a reaction with a falsity you know they can correct.
The idea is to spark a response, gain attention and build on it with dialogue. Who knows, we might learn something. It’s not about being correct. We want to encourage and then leverage the interest generated by talking about learning.
