About my research on silence

Scholars have argued that silence is important for learning. Some even go as far to say,

Silence… appears suspended between an experience of something–often a sense of comfort and relative belonging–that is “no longer” and a second possibility that is “not yet” –the prospect of having something to say. In this sense, in its temporal structure, silence, its uncertainty and indeterminacy, appears to be remarkably similar to the experience of learning itself. (Hamelock & Friesen, 2012, p. 8)

…silence also can be a form of agency. …The choice of enacting silence for beneficial purposes in academic settings can be rich with meaning. (San Pedro, 2015, p. 513)

Literacy cannot exist without the reflection that fills silence. (Belanoff, 2001, pp. 414-416)

Silence is an active human performance…it cannot be an act of unmitigated autonomy…involves a yielding following upon the awareness of finitude and awe….it is a yielding which binds and joins. (Dauenhauer, 1980, p. 79)

Thus every word, as the event of a moment, carries with it the unsaid, to which it is related by responding and summoning. (Gadamer, 2013, p. 454)

Teachers can interpret the silence of students or a class of students as a lack of knowledge or understanding, or they can listen to what is communicated through the silence. Rather than a failure to understand, silence might indicate the need for more time to reflect or that ideas may be difficult to put into words. (Schultz, 2010, p. 2845)

And I leave you with the thoughts of Ted Aoki:

…an authentic person is no mere individual, an island unto oneself, but is a being-in-relation-with-others, and hence is, at core, an ethical being. Such a person knows that being an educated person is more than possessing knowledge or acquiring intellectual or practical skills, and that basically, it is being concerned with dwelling aright in thoughtful living with others. (Aoki, 2012, p. 624)

---

---

References

---