ABSTRACT
I shall first consider ways by which a teacher can get to know what any individual child’s presuppositions are, about some given topic. Clearly the most obvious way, though not the most commonly practised, is actually to listen to what the child has to say about it. This is most effective after the child has had some opportunity to think about the subject: possibly through a question or task, tackled without haste. The elicitation of ideas will probably need either a quiet moment alone or a small group discussion. It is well worth the trouble to tape-record these conversations, to aid the memory.
