Contingency

This category concerns classroom events that are almost impossible to plan for. In commonplace language it is the ability to ‘think on one’s feet’. In particular, the readiness to respond to children’s ideas and a consequent preparedness, when appropriate, to deviate from an agenda set out when the lesson was prepared. A constructivist view of learning provides a valuable perspective on children’s contributions within lessons. To put aside such indications, or simply to ignore them or dismiss them as ‘wrong’, can be construed as a lack of interest in what it is that that child (and possibly others) have come to know as a consequence, in part, of the teacher’s teaching. However, Brown and Wragg (1993) observe that “our capacity to listen diminishes with anxiety” (p. 20). Uncertainty about the sufficiency of one’s subject matter knowledge may well induce such anxiety, although this is just one of many possible causes.