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Guided Discussion
I have often heard teachers say that they run guided discussions and
am always made very uncomfortable by that term. If it is used to
describe the way a teacher leads the discussion towards a predefined
end point, the term is, in my view, an oxymoron. Discussion is, by
definition, a free and open conversation in which no end point is
specified. It entails the emergence of unpredictable avenues of inquiry
and people changing their minds as they consider new evidence or
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alternative interpretations of existing evidence. At the heart of dis-
cussion is the open and unpredictable creation of meanings through
collaborative inquiry. It is intellectually dishonest for a discussion
leader to have decided in advance what these meanings should be
and to call the resulting conversation a discussion.
This does not mean that the deliberate initiation of students
into previously determined meanings or understandings through a
Socratic dialogue is somehow invalid. On the contrary, it is a cru-
cial element in introducing students to new concepts, bodies of
knowledge, or areas of inquiry and is a strategy I use myself. In
teaching critical theory I take full responsibility for introducing dif-
ficult concepts such as ideology, hegemony, liberation, and praxis
in as clear a way as I can by talking with students about the different
ways they understand those terms. But when I do this, I am not
teaching through discussion. I have a very clear purpose in mind
which is to make sure learners are “inside” the concept. To use a
term borrowed from R. S. Peters (1967), I want to be sure that stu-
dents command the “grammar” of the subject; that is, that they
understand fully the criteria by which good and bad examples of
intellectual work in the subject are determined and that they grasp
correctly the essential conceptual building blocks of a particular
body of knowledge.
Just because teachers and students are talking does not mean
they are engaged in discussion. The intent and manner of the talk
are crucial. For example, if I question students to make sure they
have understood Marcuse’s (1965) concept of repressive tolerance
in the way he intended it to be understood, I do use classroom talk,
but I am definitely not using discussion. My approach is more like
the structured Socratic dialogue referred to earlier. However, when
I ask the group to talk about the meaning this concept has for stu-
dents’ own experiences, the extent to which it explains things they
have seen in their lives, the degree to which it raises the specter of
censorship for them, or contains an implicit arrogance—then I am
using discussion. I have no idea where the conversation will turn
Preparing Students for Discussion
129
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130
T
HE
S
KILLFUL
T
EACHER
and no predetermined objectives that must be met before the day’s
class has finished.
A guided discussion is not only a contradiction in terms, it is
also a profoundly inauthentic process. If you are asking students to
enter into a collaborative inquiry to explore and create multiple
meanings, it is basically dishonest to have worked out in advance
what those meanings will be. In a classic article Paterson (1970)
describes such conversations as counterfeit discussions led by a
teacher “who unobtrusively and skillfully synthesizes the various
discussion contributions of his students, by judicious selection and
emphasis, into a neatly structured and rounded proposition or body
of propositions, which are then presented as the ‘conclusions’ of the
‘class discussion’” (p. 47). In my experience I know very quickly
when I’m in such a discussion, and my immediate impulse is to get
out of it as soon as possible.
I have often found myself a participant in a discussion where the
leader is nudging the conversation along to a predetermined conclu-
sion with which he agrees. I see this happen when the leader ignores
questions or ideas raised by students that are inconvenient or awk-
ward for his position. It also occurs when a teacher reframes what a
student has said in a way that distorts the student’s meaning so that
it supports the leader’s views. If something is forcing me to stay in the
room during such a discussion, then I mount a consciousness strike.
I withdraw my mental labor and start turning over in my mind some
work or research problems that have no connection to what we’re
talking about. So in my view guided discussion is a self-negating con-
cept if it means guiding talk towards a particular position or point of
consensus. Whenever this happens it means that certain perspectives
and information have been excluded at the outset.
It does make sense, however, to describe a discussion as guided
if what is being guided are the processes by which students are
helped to listen respectfully, seek clarification and understanding of
each others’ ideas, and create opportunities for all voices to be
heard. In guided discussions we can guide students in learning
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the habits of democratic discourse but not in learning predeter-
mined conclusions or prechosen meanings. Guiding the process of
discussion is legitimate if it makes sure everyone gets a chance to
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