One of the manifestations of the current ‘educational emergency’ is a lack of opportunities for a genuine appreciation of silence and stillness. This does not refer solely to noise and chatter in the classroom but is something deeper and more urgent. What does this mean and how is it an issue?
The educator should see websites, blogs and social media platforms as rich opportunities to enhance the educational opportunities available. We hold no truck with an unthinking Luddism which holds technological innovation in disdain; neither do we see the new media as revolutionary tools without which we can no longer teach. (A good exercise for student teachers is to plan lessons for a classroom which has no power sockets. They can only use books and some form of board for writing. If you are a teacher educator, try it with your students.)
Social media afford us an opportunity to connect instantly to our ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ across the world. Of course, this can be a wonderful tool to pass on good information about books, websites etc. but has the potential seriously to disturb our ability to concentrate for sustained periods of time. If we study constantly with these media switched on then the temptation to break our patterns of work and study is ever-present.
Without denying the beneficial role that technology can play in education, let us not forget the value of a comfortable chair and the text of a good book or a journal. It does not matter if it is read on an e-reader as long as other functions of the device are turned off. To read deeply in such a setting needs silence and stillness, not just of the body, but of the spirit; from this recreative opportunity the student is free to engage in meaningful dialogue with the text and begin to make sense of it in his or her own mind. This is where learning begins and the students realise that their teachers are not just those who stand before them in class on a daily basis but are, in fact, the great minds of the past upon whose shoulders we all stand. The only way to know what these minds have to say to us today is to spend the necessary time in the sustained, silent reading of the classic texts.
