Can you imagine what it is like to be seating quietly in a class for hours on end? Oops I forgot. My sincere apologies, most of us went through that when we were in school. I did too,

All too often today, this classroom “management” approach of expecting students to be quiet is still being practised. Students are expected to seat still, facing their teacher who invariably would be at the front almost hugging the white board, be quiet and listen attentively.

Is this a classroom full of live human students or dog training school (I often wonder if dog training school is actually better)? Is a a quiet classroom good for the learners in the class? By learners I mean both the the students and the teachers.

In my view, a quiet classroom is a reflection of the teacher’s lack of ability to manage the class in a more dynamic way. Management of the class is by enforced stillness.  Have such teachers stopped to ask themselves if making students keep still in the classroom a natural thing for young children or even teenagers to do? Have they ever stopped to ask if they, the teachers themselves, have enjoyed it when they were students themselves? Even in passenger aircraft today, they want passengers to move around to ensure blood circulation. Ever wonder what happens to brains starved of oxygen due to lack of blood circulation that is due to keeping still in the classrooms?

Such classrooms only benefit the teachers whose main goal is the teaching of unquestioned obedience. Marshall McLuhan has pointed out that in such a classroom, where information flows in one direction only, what is learnt is not the information that is being “transmitted” by the teacher but what the students are allowed to do. Since they are allowed to only sit and listen they will then only learn unquestioned authority.

In a quiet classroom, students are likely to be passive learners if they learn at all. All that energy and curiosity that exist in the young bodies and minds is strangely channeled to learn to be still. The mind slows down to the barest level of activity as the teacher drones on. The stillness is only interrupted when the teacher has a question and the mind is expected suddenly to be at its best to answer the question. When are the students encouraged to reflect and think? When are the students encouraged to construct meaning for themselves about what they are supposed to be learning?

But unfortunately, for many, never mind all these because, to quote Mr. Gradgrind from Charles Dickens’ Hard Times:

Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.

For many, the quiet classroom is usually not a place for noble educational goals. The classroom is quiet usually because the teachers want to cover the syllabus for the examinations. Any interruption is frowned upon because it slows down the teachers and the teacher will not be able to cover the syllabus in time. There is a lot to teach.

So in a  quiet classroom, learning is also not a social event. Students do not learn to work together. Students do not get the chance to sound off each other and learn from one another. Everyone is expected to be deep in his private thought. In the real world does learning take place in this manner? Yet, students expected to become team players at the workplace when they leave school. In the quiet classroom, it is everyone for himself.

Stumble! for WP