Silence as teacher

The Heritage School is by no means a simple school. But its defining characteristic may be the calmness you feel in yourself after having spent a day there. I am amazed by how the school has been able to build itself around the base of silence.

It feels as if the school embraces spirituality, and spending time in a classroom gives the impression that the educational approach itself is one that views schooling as a spiritual experience.

I may not have always loved structures and rules, but the structures around which a school day at Heritage unravel are beginning to grow on me. The day begins with a ten minute silence time, when children sing a song (is it a bhajan?) that ends with them chanting om. After a whole day of learning, moving about, playing, the children are again aloud to sit silently for five minutes before the school ends and they leave for home. Both times, while seated in the classroom, I closed my eyes and tried to soak up in the energy that was being produced. And a familiar pleasant buzz began to ring all over my body. The last five minutes of the day in particular feel like a great time to end on a note of silence. The day is tiring for children as well as teachers, and this really allows the children to be calm and collect their energies.

I’ve heard teachers here say phrases like ‘children, we need to collect our energy’ or ‘children, I think we need to reconnect with each other as a class, so let’s do circle time later today.’ Your experiences may determine the vocabulary you choose to use, but your choice of vocabulary can just as easily determine the way you approach your experiences. So I have been pleasantly surprised by the offerings made by the teachers in terms of their word choice alone. When children begin to think of their distraction and misbehaviour as a dispersion of their energy, and their correct behaviour as a signal of their groundedness, then I feel like we are offering children a lot more in being disciplined than the mere instance of fulfilling somebody else’s needs. I think with something like this, we are already working towards building character, and building internal strength and resilience. That other beautiful word--of connection and reconnection--is equally important because it helps reaffirm the children’s identity. There is, of course, the individual self that forms an identity. But an equally important living and functioning identity is that of the group, and once children see themselves as part of something larger, something whole. Having always fallen under the microscopic gaze in my own school, and having developed an even harsher gaze of scrutiny towards myself over the years, I find it of utmost value that children at such a young age begin to think of themselves as a part of a living whole. I think it allows us to be forgiving towards our own mistakes, and allows us to look upon our strengths in a different way. Not something to boast about, not something that differentiates and separates me from others, but something that helps me to build a bridge and connect with others.

Also, being around people who use words like energy and connections--I’ve always found that so rare--makes my heart tingle with joy. I had a wonderful experience of observing one of the teachers who seems very spiritually in tune with her students, and who leads her class like a guru rather than a traditional school teacher. I will leave that for another post.

For now, getting back to silence. When I think of silence has an educational tool, multiple possibilities open up. Now it depends on the individual teacher what they want to make out of it. Even in my observations here, I have seen silence being used as a tool for classroom management. And that has been used in a very successful manner. The students here know, understand and practice silence like no other middle school children I have met. But silence lends itself to much more than just classroom management. It can end up being that window through which you view life. I can become your lens.

Silence is something I want to see being put into practice at Nisarga as well. Silence has always enchanted me, and having a meditative base upon which children and teachers can build their educational experiences will have advantages in the short and long run.

The school has one of those instant coffee brewing machines. The coffee it gives out is too sweet, but I can live with that. The cup is just tiny, however, and my coffee already gone. Now that I have trouble accepting.