Shhhh…. The Power of Silence

Day 22

download

As I’ve shared within posts before, when I’m walking the trails or throughout Delaware I love to listen to audiobooks.   I tend to walk further and faster when I’m involved in an exciting story line and the anticipation of the next chapter is sometimes all the encouragement that I need to strap on my Reeboks. But, I’m currently in between books and therefore my walks the last couple of days have been in silence ~ that is in terms of a reader sharing the various voices in a book.   Silence is the last thing that I would use to describe what was happening in my mind.  Orioles and squirrels became a blog about pedagogical documentation.  I’m hoping that the Languages team will find my idea (hatched as I rounded the final corner of our country block) about how to document where we’ve been and where we’re going a useful strategy.  The transformation of one corner of my garden actually resembled what I had conjured up in my mind (as I took notice of my Dutch neighbours artistically manicured gardens in the village).  The list goes on and on…..not to mention a few “oh my goodness, I better do that before sitting down to blog” odd tasks.

As I reflect on the barrage of ideas that seemed to tumble through my mind on my “silent” walk, I started to wonder about the amount of time that we provide our students for quiet reflection and subsequently idea generation.  How much time do students actually have when their teacher is not talking?  I can’t help but wonder if our teachers (who are truly doing what they feel is in the best interests of our students) are somehow sabotaging our students’ ability to come up with an original idea by controlling the volume and breadth of the audio input in a classroom.

Something to think about ~ and best done without an accompanying soundtrack!silence-is-not-the-absence-of-something