Sources or Students

Diana is a really quiet student who almost never participates in class, much less in discussions. We were in the middle of a student-led discussion and finally Diana shared her opinion. I was initially excited. As part of the student-led discussion structure, one of my students had the role of “facilitator,” and was responsible for calling on students and keeping track of participation. He saw Diana’s hand up and immediately called on her. She said, “Well, I mean, none of these sources are reliable, they’re just opinions, and we can’t trust any of them.” I started to feel nervous. I hoped that the student facilitator would ask if anyone wanted to push back against the idea that Diana had just raised about the unreliability of the sources. Instead, the student facilitator just moved on. I started to feel even more nervous. I didn’t want to undermine the student facilitator, who was doing a really good job bringing in new voices and keeping the discussion organized. I also wanted it to be clear that we can’t simply say all the sources are unreliable and leave it at that. I wasn’t sure what to do.