Silent classrooms not true learning
December 4, 2002
Quiet faces in classrooms let boring ass lectures live. We need to kill that. Do you enjoy a class where only the teacher speaks? If you do, stop reading. PeaceTeachers stand in front of 30 students and beg for someone to speak but few have the balls or the will to reply aloud.
Is this why our college classes are so silent? It can?t be?
Going to class and not interacting is expanding the gap between the educated. You know who you are. You take notes on the entire lecture, you get to class on time everyday, but you don?t say anything while you?re there. Why?
I thought college classrooms were supposed to be engaging rooms of enlightenment. Not the dreary learning pits they have become or have always been; where five in the room are sleeping, three are drawing on desks, 15 are taking notes, no one is talking or discussing the knowledge that?s being dropped by the professor, and the cutest girl in class is absent again! Why do we even go to class?
You don?t need to raise your hand to talk, this isn?t elementary school. Talk when the other person is done, ask when it?s appropriate, say something stupid, obnoxious, or astute. Maybe you?ll get some laughs and maybe some jerk will laugh at you, but at least you will have touched a nerve either way.
Others like to sound smart and always have something to say. These are the ones who need to shut their mouth hole the most. We need to give others a chance to speak and ask questions. Does it take a snob to silence a room with intellect, or does it just take your loud-mouth-jerk-off self? Your intelligence is boring and monotonous, and you?re using it wrong. You could help other express thoughts but instead you scare them with arrogance.
Try being the impassioned loud mouth. This person talks all the time. In the front row, in the back row, it doesn?t matter. But this student asks other students questions. Helps others get involved. These students have heart, and charisma, and enjoy being in class.
We, as students, have been told that public speaking, just ahead of death, is the greatest of American fears. Are we afraid because we?ve been told that we are afraid? Don?t whimper out an answer like you?re asking a question. If you?re afraid to be wrong then you?ll never have the opportunity to get it right.
The invisible brain also exists in each class. We are the ones who know the answer but allow others to speak our mind because attracting the attention of talking just isn?t worth it. We?re doing a disservice to the education community.
Listen, just talk. It doesn?t have to sound smart. Our classrooms are boring enough; add your voices to the silent sound of communications death. Peace.
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