How to Resolve Pop-Up Debate Power Struggles Where a Student Refuses to Speak

I've written before on what I do for students who have official accommodations that prohibit mandated public speaking. But what about those students who do not have such accommodations but still refuse to speak?

Here's how one reader posed the question:

Hey Dave,
I agree that your pop up debate format can be a magical tool. I know that you say in your detailed tips on getting started that it is critical for the first debate to have EVERY student speak. When you have a student (or two or three) who flatly refuses to stand and speak (even to read from their notes), what are your tricks of persuasion? I am looking to avoid the public power struggle of teacher waiting for the final students to speak and students refusing/ignoring pleas to participate? I have students who will not speak in class, no matter what I have tried.

From our colleague Ryan Hubbard's comment on a previous post

Let's unpack what I do in these kinds of situations.

Situation:

We are at the end of the pop-up debate, and a student has not gone yet. I call on the student, and the student does not stand up, shaking their head.

(Note: when there is a lull in a pop-up debate, I am quick to call on students who have not yet spoken. I do this to save instructional time, to limit unhelpful awkwardness, and to reduce unhelpful pressure.)

Step 1: Quickly and calmly move on from the situation.

I make a note on my clipboard to remind me to touch base with the student — usually just an underline or a 0. I then move on to calling the next person who hasn't spoken yet. Or, if that was the last person, I move right into the post-debate reflection with the whole class. (There's a videotaped example of one of these post-debate reflections at the end of this video.)

Step 2: When it's convenient, pull that student aside and ask them why they didn't speak.

Usually, this will be at the end of the class period.

“So-and-so, let me speak with you a second.”

Once they're with me and as folks are leaving the room, I ask, “So during that pop-up debate, you didn't speak. What happened?” And then, I listen. If there are multiple students that refused to speak, same thing — except instead of one person sharing with me what happened, there are two or three.

Once they've shared what they have to say — sometimes a few sentences, sometimes only a few words — I say a few more things.

“Well, for today's debate, you didn't get any credit, but that's okay — we'll be having another one next week. My question to you is, what can I do to help you make that debate a success?”

(Note: I often will put pop-up debates into the gradebook as a credit/no-credit type of grade. Because I have so many classwork grades each semester from the frequent quizzing we do, getting a zero on a pop-up debate is not a high-stakes problem.)

With this conversation with the non-speaking student(s), my goals are to:

• 1) Identify why the student(s) didn't stand
• 2) Offer any help that I can
• 3) Encourage them to participate in the future by sharing my belief that they can and my willingness to help in any way I can

And that's it. That's all I do. And in just about all cases in my 10+ years of pop-up debate facilitation, this does the trick over time. Maybe not in the next debate or even the next one. But eventually, the student gets in the pool.

So why do I think this is the best way to handle the situation?

Well first of all, I think it's the best way because it reduces shame. Most of us experience some degree of anxiety in speaking for our peers. For some of us, this anxiety is debilitating. As a guy who has experienced anxiety since he was little, I get this. And I know that, whenever you mix shame in with anxiety, it's a toxic and living cocktail that feeds upon itself. So, by moving on quickly from the refusal to speak, I'm giving shame as little sunlight as possible.

Second, I think it normalizes that things don't always go like we'd hoped. For the students who are in the room observing the student's refusal, I want to model for them that everything is okay. Folks are at all different places in their journeys, and that doesn't need to spoil the classroom or make it tense.

And finally, I think it's the best way because of how many times I've seen it work over time. The last thing you want to do for someone who is refusing to speak publicly is place more pressure to speak upon them. And when we turn situations like these into anything other than what I've described above, that's what we do: we increase pressure and shame. The method above does the opposite — it minimizes shame and pressure and instead makes our classrooms places more like real life. Because in real life, people have bad days, people make mistakes, people don't always perform like we'd hoped.

But there's always tomorrow.

Best,

DSJR