Students do ask questions that are *way* off the mark sometimes, but at least I now warn participants of this and ask them just to do their best. The best thing about kids is that they ask questions others never think to. My favourite question to an environmental officer was “What’s the environmental impact of fast food?” The guy had never thought about it before but his answers were fantastic.

You’re also right about the discussion element. I’d never noticed before, but thinking back now, the best calls have been those were the participant asked the *students* questions and genuinely listened to their answer. They were more a ‘discussion’ than an ‘expert’ answering session and more fulfilling for everyone.

Thank you for this valuable post

Thanks so much for today - I was the Citizenship Teacher using Twitter and can I thank you on behalf of all the class for your Tweets. They had never used the platform before but it went really well and they engaged with the topic despite the ‘novelty’ factor. They did, as you say, go off topic a little but I think this was as much to do with the way I planned it as it was to do with them.

Speaking of which, thanks also for your suggestions and comments - I am currently writing up the lesson myself so will forward it to you from misscitizenship@googlemail.com and I hope we repeat the experiment again soon.

Thanks again for all your help.

Emma Chandler
Citizenship Teacher