A Pedagogical Experiment in Silence

“Now let us frankly face the fact that our culture is one which is geared in many ways to help us evade any need to face this inner, silent self. We live in a state of constant semiattention to the sound of voices, music, traffic, or the generalized noise of what goes on around us all the time…It cannot be said that we are really participating in anything and we may, in fact, be half conscious of our alienation and resentment.”

- Thomas Merton, “Silence and Solitude” (from Thomas Merton: Essential Writings, 74)

Because my university has been tinkering with it's general education program, I was assigned a newer course on scripture this semester. We have long had a gen ed course on the New Testament that is built especially around historical-critical approaches to the text. The new course (titled “Is God Silent?”), though, was designed with a more theological approach, drawing on significant sections from both Old and New Testaments. In light of the changes, I decided on an experiment: would students benefit from learning contemplative approaches to reading scripture?

As I worked on developing my syllabus over the summer, I did extra preparation on lectio divina and the “senses of scripture.” I knew I would inevitably include some of the more critical practices and insights as class went on due to my own academic formation, but I was also hoping the course might hit students somewhat more personally.

To prepare students for more contemplative reading, we followed a daily practice of silence. Every day of our 80 minute class together, after basic pleasantries (good morning, how are y’all doing), we would spend time in silence in the classroom. The first week or so we did 3 minutes, but we gradually ramped up to 10 minutes. Devices were all silenced, off, or closed.

(I was inspired in part by theologian Greg Hillis, who has talked on Twitter about his use of silence in the classroom. He and I chatted over the summer, both about silence and his practice of “ungrading,” and how it was helping his students be more engaged with the course. )

Moreover, I told the students they should practice silence every day, not just when we were in class together. There wasn’t any way for my to enforce this of course, nor was there a grade of any kind associated with the silence. I wanted them to see silence as part of the discipline of the course, of what they were learning, but also as a discipline for living the good life beyond what we did together.

Early on, they read the “Silence and Solitude” essay by Merton that is quoted above, and were generally surprised that it was written more then fifty years ago, long before the computers and phones that are their primary sources of connection, distraction, and alienation. And in that first discussion about silence, they seemed to reckon with the idea that for most, this would be new and challenging but potentially worthwhile.

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We are now at the end of semester, and the last task these students have is an oral final exam where they meet with me for 15-20 minutes. The exam is straightforward:

1. What did you learn this semester?

2. What was your experience of silence?

3. How do you understand the senses of scripture?

4. How would you use those senses to think through a given passage of scripture?

Other questions get roped in of course, and in some of the best exams we become more conversational and free-flowing. I have been struck especially, though, at the responses on silence.

Most consistently, students note that at first, silence was awkward and uncomfortable. A few had to suppress laughter at the awkwardness, some were self-conscious, concerned that others were looking at them or would hear their breathing. They weren’t sure where to look, whether to close their eyes or not, what they were supposed to think about. Every creak of every chair, every hum of the lights stood out. And again, in the first weeks it was only three minutes, and then five.

But by the end, when they were doing ten minutes of silence, it seems that most students had embraced the practice.

For many, silence held a certain utilitarian value: they had a moment to think about their day and the tasks that lay ahead, to knock off some mental tasks without the lure of TikTok et al. Silence helped them to focus and thus become more effective at homework, at practice, at their jobs. It was not really leisure in Pieper’s sense, but rather a new wrench in the productivity toolkit.

For others, silence followed more the lines of what Merton mapped out for them: it created an opportunity for them to reckon with themselves, with the “disturbing stranger, the self that is both ‘I’ and someone else.” There was an inner peace that came with facing themselves, consistently, deliberately. Others connected their new encounter with the self with being better able to listen to God, too. Trapped, briefly, at the start of class in silence, they were freed from the flight from self and the flight from God that distraction enables.

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I’m not sure how the practice of silence impacted our in-class time together - it was my first time teaching this course, so I don’t have a previous control to compare against. Moreover, discussion driven courses are always shaped by the idiosyncrasies of that semester’s chemistry. But I think it did make students more willing to take time to reflect on texts and questions, to accept the inefficiency of contemplation, to accept that insight is only something you can prepare for, not something you can compel.

(It also, incidentally, removed the “use awkward pauses as a motivator to get students to speak” wrench from my own pedagogical toolbox. But that is probably for the best anyway.)

The practice of silence also opened them up to thinking about the question that is the course’s title, “Is God Silent?” Students saw their own practice of silence ultimately as a way of hearing - themselves, God, other people - and thus of improving communication. They saw scripture where God speaks in bold pronouncements and crushing floods, but also where God speaks with absence or stillness. It enabled them to see the refractions of scripture across different texts, such as how John calls on the creation story in Genesis 1 to show the Word made flesh that dwelt among us.

I think they learned a lot of the same things, actually, as they would have in a course more structurally focused on critical approaches to scripture. But maybe also they have internalized the ideas and disciplines in this course in ways that I never succeeded with in past ones. We’ll see next time around.