Show and Tell: It’s a Window on their Lives by Alan Shapiro

As a child in elementary school, I like most other students, remember occasions when I was invited to share a favourite item or anecdote with the class. More recently, as the adult teacher, my focus shifted to how best to manage this activity. Because I have experienced this activity from two very different perspectives, I was curious to read and review how the author approached the topic of such a commonplace experience. Shapiro takes what most would consider an ordinary, everyday childhood experience and examines the significance of the experience. Specifically, he considers what the experience of “show’n tell” is like for both the students and the teacher. He delves deeper and further questions “What can “show’n tell” tell us about the lifeworlds of children and their teachers?” He addresses directly the phenomenological nature of his inquiry stating the activity will be “viewed from a pre-theoretical vantage point … laying aside preconceived notions concerning” this activity.
Shapiro takes a fairly straightforward and effective approach in addressing the questions he poses. He uses numerous quotes from students to illuminate what the experience is like from their perspective. In doing so, he identifies common themes in what the students experience. For some, it is a self- conscious, embarrassing experience. Cheryl reports that “you want to leave because it is so crowded with a lot of people and they start laughing at you and you can’t figure (out) why they are laughing at you and you don’t like it very much.” Others express fear: “I get so frightened and I just want to go in back and sit down.” Still others express anger: “it just pisses me off when they laugh at me.” While Shapiro acknowledges that children experience a range of emotions when engaging in “show’n tell”, what I like about this section is the way in which he recognizes the enormity of the decision students make to come forward. The student “places his self-outside-the- crowd” and to stand “up there”. There is a “danger” in making the shift from subjective to objective. “The group –we that was seconds ago a security and refuge, has become potentially threatening “them”.” In supporting and developing this idea with a quotation from Merleau-Ponty(1956) he further demonstrates the risk the students are taking when they choose to go public. Students are “caught by a gaze which freezes me in my tracks, reduces me to the condition of an object, steals my world from me, and takes away my freedom along with my subject position.”
In continuing his exploration of the show’n tell experience, Shapiro shifts to using anecdotes to demonstrate the experience from the teachers’ perspective. Teachers felt uncomfortable with the matter-of-fact way students shared quite personal details about their lives away from school. Listening to a recount of how daddy was taken away to jail at “show’n’tell “ time for example can be somewhat disconcerting. My connection to the discomfort felt by some of the teachers when listening to the personal accounts of particular students was immediate. When students report out incidents that involve family members in compromised situations, it can be awkward and we as teachers, don’t’ really know how to deal with it. And yet it is a forum for students’ real life problems and issues to be expressed. Shapiro makes an important point about how intertwined the social, emotional and intellectual development of a student is with teachers’ own emotional engagement with the student. In forming a relationship with students, the teacher then provides the environment in which those students can express themselves and experience the tension necessary for social emotional growth.

In juxtaposition to the feelings of embarrassment and fear, students also expressed how much they enjoyed “show’n’tell”. Students felt important and heard. “Oh, I like it because I like to tell about me and what I do, and what I have and what my cousins do.” We need show'n tell because if I had something to tell about me and what happens to me I couldn't tell it because there would be no time anyplace. (Linnea, Grade Three). For a moment in time, the spotlight is on the child and her story and the group is concerned only with what that person has to share.
The piece I find somewhat unusual about the article is in the fact that many of the students quoted were from Grade Six. In my experience, “show’n’tell” has generally been more of primary activity than an intermediate one. I found the grades one and three quotes to be more authentic.
The article acknowledges the feelings and experiences of participating in “show’n’tell” (for both students and teachers) that may have been unspoken in the past. Shapiro sums up his article insightfully with “Encountered in this manner, they may discover the possibility of being with others and at the same time being with themselves.” Students can learn to be put themselves out there and still be okay within themselves. As teachers we can provide the opportunities to develop the skills to do so.

Test Pilot

Hello everyone:

I am getting back up to speed and just experimenting with the environment. I see many of you have either posted an review or have responded to one. Blogspot does make it as easy as 1,2,3 to get started! For now I will lurk, until I have some content to add. Susan