The Gatekeeper

Although asking questions in seek of an answer is a form of curiosity that leads to learning, it is the teachers, not the students, who ask most of the questions in a classroom. This is largely due to the fact that teachers are considered gatekeepers. What does the word gatekeeper mean exactly?

A gatekeeper seems to be the point that allows travel between one location and another through a gate or a passageway. The gatekeeper effectively controls the transitions between one place and the other by maintaining the flow of the situation. In a teacher’s case, they will determine who will talk, when, and for how long. This precise control can effectively influence the lesson being taught. A learning environment can be considered more efficient when the entire group is constantly participating and communicating but without the teacher giving the instructions and maintaining the flow of the discourse, the learning environment can disperse.

The teachers as the gatekeepers influenced some major reforms in the field of education. Training better and more professional educators in turn leads to better, or at least more qualified gatekeepers. There are some critics of gatekeeping that believe something should be changed to allow for better student interaction. A teacher that lectures and over- controls classes might not be achieving the full potential of the lesson. Students get bored easily especially if there is no interaction. While teacher may be the ones asking most of the questions, not enough time is given for the students to think about an answer.

Professional gatekeeping should be a required professional skill. If more resources went into effectively training teachers to use gatekeeping to its maximum potential, then perhaps the students will benefit from it. Effective gatekeeping should be a mixture of classroom interaction and discourse transitioned by the teacher in a way that does not disrupt the thinking environment. There should be a way of allowing the teacher to allow the students to ask the right questions while maintaining the subject on point. Effective gatekeeping should be considered an art if done correctly.