Silence in a Classroom :: Learning Teach Teachers Papers

Silence in a Classroom How can silence be put to use in a feminist classroom? What are the positive ways to condition silence, ways which em king, quite an than shut down? Audre Lorde has been widely quoted on the shun impacts of silence on women. She uses the term silence as an active verb those with power have historically silenced others.But I am interested in the other implications for silence, namely, using silence as a toolfor discovery, creation, and trustworthy critical thinking.Our culture is afraid of silence.We bombard ourselves with cell phones, television and radio. a lot the assumption is that if someone is not talking, it must be a wild thing.As teachers, we replicate this model in our classrooms.We whole tone that students must really be getting something out of our classes when they talk about what they are encyclopaedism.But does talking continuously insure that a student has really processed the material and do it her own? Or is talking in class often some other form of performing for the teacher? Particularly in a written material class, where students are practicing putting haggle down on the page, cultivating a slow space seems imperative.My belief is that the more students are encouraged to write rather than talk in the composition classroom, the more they will trust their military position as authors of their own pieces.Silence can be an opening into the untapped places where deep, wildcat make-up is created.Peter Elbow writes about felt sense, the way we can feel whether or not our intentions are being expressed in our writing by listening to our bodies The foundation of verbal meaning often lies in the silence of what is felt nonverbally and bodily.When writing goes well, it is often because we periodically break off and say, Is this what I mean to be saying?Its amazing that we can process that questionthat we can tell whether a given set of words corresponds to an intention.The source of the answer is the feeling s and the body-consulted in silence.When writing goes badly, it is often because we dont make these pauses for moderate consultations with felt sense. (Everyone Can Write 176) Many of our students are just learning to trust themselves as writers.Most havent had the opportunity in high school to look for what writing can do for their thinking they have been taught that writing is a product produced for a teacher.Student-centered pedagogy seeks to de-center teacher authority, and has moved away from conventional methods such as the lecture format to more group discussion.