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Dealing With Questions

Children ask questions. If you are lucky, adolescents may ask questions. Both like to challenge you in their different ways. Of course RE is all about questions and challenge and it aims to produce deep-thinking pupils. Most questions will be comparatively easy for you to handle (and remember that you can always turn the question back to the enquirer, and ask what they think).

However, there are times when the interaction does not seem very helpful. Here are some quick-fix solutions for those trickier moments. See also the Scenarios section for clues to dealing with some of the more difficult subjects and situations you may encounter.

If You Think Something's Going Wrong...

How do you gracefully handle answers that are:

Wrong?

'Not quite', 'nearly' and 'try again' are all useful phrases that should have the desired effect without making the answerer feel a fool.

Mischievous?

'Yeah, right!' (if you're hip enough)

'Thank you Jason' (amazing how often it's Jason)

'Ha-di-ha-ha...' etc.. That is, refuse to endow the statement with any serious consideration.

Off the wall?

If it's with tiny children, it will usually be wrong and don't get distracted by it. With older pupils, ask them to explain: there may be a link you haven't thought of. The explanation should show where they've got side-tracked or come from a different angle.

Long, confidential?

Stop the pupil midstream and ask him or her to tell you about it later.