Overview of translated news items and self-written (some of them published) articles
This Opinion has been published in the Dutch Daily Newspaper Het Nederlands Dagblad in 2016
…It is beneficial for pupils if the school day starts with a moment of silence. It improves concentration, it connects with other pupils and you get rid of your uncertainties.
‘Miss, I forgot my book’, ‘Miss, have you seen Max Verstappen, isn’t it great?!’
This is how my Monday morning lesson started. Pupils come in with heads full of homework and weekend memories. Their use of smartphones before lessons and in the breaks reinforces their restlessness. Banning the smartphone from the school proves impossible, also because parents and children use it to maintain contact. Pupils usually react immediately, without thinking, often emotionally to the abundance of messages; a multitude that does them no good. For example, there was Anne, who felt excluded in the preparation for a class party because her smartphone profile had been accidentally deleted from the group app. But it had caused her three sleepless nights before she found out. There have also been reports in the press of schoolchildren appending nude photos, still unaware of the impact this has on their own sense of dignity.
empowerment
How can we, as schoolteachers, guide pupils to build in more peace and save energy for a concrete school day together? Making young people resilient to what causes unrest and does not feel good is part of being a teacher. That is why I make a plea for a moment of silence. Not an instructive silence to make a teaching task, but a quiet moment for the pupils themselves at the beginning of each school day.
Firstly, opening a day of lessons with silence helps pupils to settle down and concentrate better. I am not alone in this. Scientific studies show that starting with silence leads to more positive learning results and better interaction with classmates and teacher. A moment of silence brings pupils’ attention back to themselves and to the concrete ‘here and now’ in the classroom. It promotes their analytical and problem-solving work on assignments and reading texts.Secondly, silence has a captivating effect on the rest of the school day. Pupils find silence fascinating. Anyone who has ever spent a minute in silence with others will understand that. Time seems to disappear for a moment when the pupils are silent together. In this, they are one. Being able to be silent strengthens their feeling of being part of the same group of pupils, all in an equal situation.Thirdly, silent introspection helps individual pupils to let go of detracting thoughts and feelings and to learn to choose better what feels good for them personally and what does not.
Silence leads to more positive learning and better interaction with classmates and teacher.
relaxation
In this school year (2016), there were over 960,000 pupils in secondary education. They are a valuable part of our future society, in which external stimuli will only increase.
A quiet moment at the beginning of a school day brings relaxation and gives the brain the opportunity to learn to use the interaction between emotions and thoughts optimally. Silence is an appropriate educational tool for young people who have to go through school life with their head as well as their heart. The philosopher Confucius stated that in the silence of one’s own inner self, what is true becomes clear. I also feel supported in this call to silence by King Solomon, who wrote: ‘For everything that happens there is an hour, a time for everything under Heaven … a time for silence and a time for speaking’. <
Cora Westerink (1965), alumna Tilburg University and Arts Academy
