At the speed of light, an electric potential — a voltage — travels the length of a copper wire. Constantly varying in time, this voltage drives an electromagnet back and forth, pushing and pulling a flat surface of cardboard in rhythmic vibration. As the cardboard speaker pulses in and out, it alternately compresses and releases air molecules, creating waves of pressure that propagate radially at 770 miles per hour. These pressure waves are detected by an ear drum and converted to nerve signals, which the brain recognizes as an identifiable pattern — Beethoven's ninth or an ambulance siren or a baby's cry.

Sound is everywhere around us, created by electric speakers, vocal chords, musical instruments and a host of other rapidly oscillating objects. The human ear detects pressure waves with frequencies (i.e., rates of vibration) anywhere from 20 cycles per second to 20,000 cycles per second. But one of the most beautiful and pleasing sounds of all comes only when the pressure of colliding air molecules remains at a steady 14.7 pounds per square inch. At this constant atmospheric pressure, we hear that which is so hard to come by in our busy, information-filled, communication-driven lives: silence.

When I first began teaching, silence was pervasive. I was in Nairobi, Kenya, for my junior year of high school, and I spent one Saturday a month teaching reading and math to elementary students at a rural public school. My students, clad in simple uniforms, sat quietly behind their desks, dutifully writing whatever I put on the chalkboard. They were well-behaved to a tee, so much that I couldn't get them to ask or answer questions, even when called on. The novelty of a white, American teacher probably made those students more timid than usual, but the culture of their schools also emphasizes strict obedience and deference to authority. Asking questions or suggesting alternate opinions is rarely encouraged, and often reprimanded. 

D.C. public schools offer the opposite extreme. The students I have taught here overflow with words, jokes, chit-chat, songs, questions, exclamations. Restraining this bubbling energy so that students can focus and learn is one of the major challenges of effective classroom management.

It took several weeks of teaching before I arrived at the moment where my own voice was the only sound in the room. Though it didn't last long, it gave me my first boost of confidence that I could control a class of students and direct their learning. Now, after two years of practice, achieving those moments of silence is still challenging, but I have learned how to communicate to students when talking is acceptable and when it is not. I had to break the habit of answering anyone speaking out of turn, so that my students would learn that they would be ignored unless they raised their hand to be called on. I tell my students that the louder they ask a question, the less well I can hear them — they will get my full attention only by speaking in a whisper.

By controlling when students may talk, a teacher proves his capacity to direct and manage the classroom — an important demonstration for establishing respect. Also, the soft sound of pencils, scratching solutions across blue-lined notebook paper, relaxes the muscles and soothes the mind in a way that prepares a student for learning.

But silence is often over-emphasized as a strategy for classroom management. I certainly do not want to force on my students here the level of docility and restraint shown by my students in Kenya. There is a time to be quiet, when a teacher or peer is talking and everyone else must listen. And there are other times when students should be given free rein to speak, converse, interact and feed off one another's ideas. Intellectual, personal and social development cannot be delivered pre-packaged for consumption because they are not unidirectional processes. Human learning is organic, and results when several minds engage each other and contribute ideas in a collaborative effort. These are the times of deepest growth, strongest knowledge and highest entertainment.

These are also the times that require the most work from a teacher. Whether it's a competition to build the tallest newspaper tower, or a trip to the weight room to study simple machines, or a group analysis of a character from a biography, creative, engaging activities require careful planning and a keen sense for what will spark students' interest. Keeping students quiet in class is difficult, but even harder still is getting students talking — in the right kinds of ways.

My middle school band director often chastised the trumpet section when we played our notes too long: "The time when you end a note is just as important as the time when you begin it! The rest after a note is not 'nothing'; it is silence written into music." So, too, in orchestrating a classroom, the wise teacher must balance the loud with the soft, the chaos with the order and the sound with the silence.

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Wulsin is a second-year chemistry and physics teacher at the H.D. Woodson Academy of Finance and Business. Please send stories, comments, or questions to wulsin@gwu.edu.

 

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Wulsin is a second-year chemistry and physics teacher at the H.D. Woodson Academy of Finance and Business. Please send stories, comments, or questions to wulsin@gwu.edu.

Copyright 2003, The Common Denominator