Reflecting on Silence

Experiencing Silence in the Classroom

This anecdote has been developed from one student’s response to discussion that took place as part of a Curriculum Leadership course in an M.Ed program. The students have been together for one year and have completed four courses. The majority of the students are currently employed as teachers within various school districts in K-12 classes. Other students are employed in university, career and employment, early childhood, administration, and dental health settings. Some are currently not employed but have worked within the school system as teachers.  The instructor has initiated discussion to identify factors that are important for effective leadership.

I sit in class, listening to the discussion developing around me.  The instructor stands at the front of the class, gaze settling on raised hands, in turn, granting each student silent permission to add their thoughts to the discussion…

“What about respect”?

“Well, obviously as teachers we all respect our students, otherwise we wouldn’t be teachers!”  

She glances around the room, “That goes without saying!”

Quickly my glance slides over the students. Her statement is met with nods and smiles from others. I wait for someone to disagree.  No one does.  The discussion continues.

My gaze anchors to the smooth surface of the table top in front of me.  A rapid tingle bolts across my skin and my breathing turns from a smooth flow in…out…in…out, to stunted breaths.  

My voice screams through my mind, “Do you really believe that?” “Do you all believe that?” “Am I the only one to think that not all teachers respect their students?”

In a flash, memories crowd my mind.  My senses fill with the sights and sounds of a long ago class room.  My stomach rolls and the recently enjoyed muffin threatens to make an unwanted appearance.  I steadfastly watch my desktop. I continue to hope for some sign of disagreement. It does not happen.

Class ends. Laptop chimes cascade through the room as knapsacks slap the table tops.  Chair legs scrape the floor.  I sit in stillness for a moment, pulling my thoughts into the present.  Snaking my hand down the side of my chair, I seek the soft handles of my book bag and gently lift it on to my lap. With little thought, textbook, pen, and notebook, shift one at a time from the desk top into the bag.  Slowly my body weight eases to the edge of the seat, I tentatively rise and, with a quick glance at my target, start working my way to the door.

Head bowed, I stumble down the hallway, grasping my book bag. My mind buzzes, struggling to make sense of the class discussion. Fractured images collide, bounce and skitter in all directions.  Mists of thoughts swirl, refusing structure. Beliefs once as familiar and comfortable as a favourite sweater lay in tatters at my feet.  How did this happen? I feel raw with emotion. I need to think, to regroup, and to create some sense of understanding from the discussion. Am I the only one to feel this way?  

Pushing through the door to the parking lot, I see my car and slowly wade past the other cars with a mind full of chaos.  I unlock my door and slide behind the steering wheel.  For a moment my forehead rests in my hands then I reach forward and start the engine.  I drive through winding streets, stopping and starting as the traffic lights demand. Fingers clench and unclench the steering wheel as the car moves toward home. Gradually my thoughts coalesce. A pattern emerges and my breathing returns to in..out..in..out. I am ready to speak out. Unfortunately, the class has ended and the opportunity has passed.

Briefly, I think about other students in my class and realize that a number of them were also silent and wonder how they experienced their silence.

Reflecting on the Anecdote:

Lived space (spatiality):

·         I sit in class, listening to the discussion developing around me. 

·         The instructor stands at the front of the class, gaze settling on raised hands, in turn, granting each student silent permission to add their thoughts to the discussion…

·         My voice screams through my mind,

·         Her statement is met with nods and smiles from others.

Lived body (corporeality):

·         Quickly my glance slides over the students.

·         My gaze anchors to the smooth surface of the table top in front of me. 

·         A rapid tingle bolts across my skin and my breathing turns from a smooth flow in…out…in…out, to stunted breaths. 

·         My stomach rolls and the recently enjoyed muffin threatens to make an unwanted appearance. 

·         Head bowed, I stumble down the hallway, grasping my book bag. My mind buzzes, struggling to make sense of the class discussion. Fractured images collide, bounce and skitter in all directions.  Mists of thoughts swirl, refusing structure.

Lived time (temporality:

·         In a flash, memories crowd my mind.

·         My senses fill with the sights and sounds of a long ago class room. 

·         I see my car and slowly wade past the other cars with a mind full of chaos. 

·         For a moment my forehead rests in my hands then I reach forward and start the engine.

·         I drive through winding streets, stopping and starting as the traffic lights demand.

·         Fingers clench and unclench the steering wheel as the car moves toward home.

·         Gradually my thoughts coalesce.

·         …the opportunity has passed.

Themes Pulled from the Anecdote:

Isolation is one theme that can be pulled from this anecdote and I believe is most apparent in the following:

·         I sit in class, listening to the discussion developing around me.

·         My gaze anchors to the smooth surface of the table top in front of me.

·         “Am I the only one to think that not all teachers respect their students?”

·         I steadfastly watch my desktop. I continue to hope for some sign of disagreement. It does not happen

·         Head bowed, I stumble down the hallway, grasping my book bag.

Although I have identified the parts of the anecdote that I believe correspond to some of the existentials and a basic theme, I realize that there is much more work to be done to put it in to paragraph form and develop a flow.  I feel that this is an improvement over the first try.

Reflection

Living Away from Blessings: School Failure as Lived Experience.

I am eight years old and my grandmother and I are strolling across the front yard on our way to the lake.  Grandmother is holding my hand, a hand that is happily swaying back and forth.  Will there be any fish in the basket? What if we have caught the old pike?  As we reach the road the stillness of the dawn is shattered by the sound of a roaring car engine.  My grandmother lets go of my hand, and puts her arms around my body, holding me close, as if she is shielding me. Suddenly the car comes around the bend; an old, black Chevrolet. The roaring from the engine is now accompanied by rock music.  Inside the car are four young men all dressed in black, their hair artistically sculptured into greasy waves.  Beer bottles in hands casually hanging through the open car windows keep time to the music.  As they drive past us, they shout four-lettered words, whose meaning I am too young to understand.

(Henriksson, p. 27)

·   Using the wholistic or sententious approach identified by van Manen (p. 94), I came up with the following statements: 

“A grandmother’s reaction is to protect her grandchild in the face of possible danger.”
"Adults protect children."

·   I also reflected on this piece through the use of the four existential of lived space (spatiality), lived body (corporeality), lived time (temporality), and lived other (relationality):

I am eight years old and my grandmother and I are strolling across the front yard on our way to the lake-lived time (temporality)

Grandmother is holding my hand, a hand that is happily swaying back and forth-lived body (corporeality)

What if we have caught the old pike?-lived time (temporality)

As we reach the road the stillness of the dawn is shattered by the sound of a roaring car engine-lived space (spatiality)

My grandmother lets go of my hand, and puts her arms around my body, holding me close, as if she is shielding me-lived body (corporeality)

Suddenly the car comes around the bend; an old, black Chevrolet-lived time (temporality)

The roaring from the engine is now accompanied by rock music-lived space (spatiality)

Inside the car are four young men all dressed in black, their hair artistically sculptured into greasy waves-lived body (corporeality)

Beer bottles in hands casually hanging through the open car windows keep time to the music. As they drive past us, they shout four-lettered words, whose meaning I am too young to understand-lived time (temporality)

The descriptions of lived body and the lived space highlight the importance of the interaction between the grandmother and child.  As the security of the lived space changes from happy to threatening, through the introduction of the “dawn is shattered by the sound of a roaring car engine” and “the roaring from the car engine is now accompanied by rock music”, so too does the positioning of the grandmother and child change.  This change is described by “from holding my hand, a hand that is happily swaying back and forth” to “My grandmother lets go of my hand, and puts her arms around my body, holding me close, as if she is shielding me.”  This highlights the interaction between lived body and lived spaces by putting the grandmother in a protective stance in relation to the child.  The descriptions of lived time focus the situation and provides the sense of changes in time from slow and relaxed in the beginning with the sentence, “I am eight years old and my grandmother and I are strolling across the front yard on our way to the lake” to immediate and fast paces “suddenly the car comes around the bend..”, giving the sense of urgency and interruption.  “Beer bottles in hands casually hang through the open car windows keep time to the music” gives the impression that the urgency is coming from the grandmother and child, not from the people in the car. “I am too young to understand.” The child senses that there is more to the situation but does not know what it is and thinks that it is because of their youth. 

 

Although I have identified the two sections with the grandmother and grandchild as lived body, I think that these two could be identified as lived relation because of the sense of interpersonal significance. I think that this is a good example of a short and strong anecdote that resonates with me when I read it. I think that it is very plausible.

Hi Susan and Gloria!

You both make great points. Although I was able to connect with the article, I too had some reservations about the length of the anecdote.  I think that a well written, descriptive, focused anecdote can be very powerful (think of Iris's anecdote from class). I think it also shows that writting an effective anecdote is not easy and will take practice.  Gloria, you also mentioned abut the number of questions being disorienting.  I agree, it took me a couple readings to pull out what I thought were the essential questions.  This highlights, for me, the importance of the questions being within the "circle" that Norm spoke about in class.  It is easy to get too many that the focus becomes lost and one becomes easily side tracked.  I did like that the article raised so many questions that it highlighted the variety of branches of inquiry that could be taken from the main question (What is the essence of training).  I also find it interesting that  it is not so easy to identify "THE question" in the article.  I think Norm also mentioned this in the article he reviewed.  Maybe this is part of what makes hermeneutic phenomenology so difficult to explain.. I am still looking for black and white, cut and dried... not words that can be used to describe this methodology (and philosophy)!

Susan,
How exciting that the girls felt so uplifted and "spiritual" in their success. I can't help but think this is what the article is getting at..the soul/body expreience of training and what focuses each individual to keep going.  It is also interesting how one article can draw different people in in different ways.  I thought this article was great at providing questions to spur further inquiry.

Thanks for your comments!
:) Merilee

The Workout: The Phenomenology of Training Article Review

The Workout: The Phenomenology of Training, by Heather Devine

The Question(s)

As the title suggests, the article raises the question of the phenomenology of training.  However, within the 14 pages, the author poses many questions that flow from this question and eventually the question “What is the essence of intentional physical training” becomes apparent. Some other questions that are raised during the discussion include:

·         What does it mean to be fit?

·         Can a child derive any spiritual benefit from sport when she is made to feel that her body functions inadequately?

·         Why are there individuals who engage in regular physical training not for the purposes of competition, but for themselves?

The Anecdote

The author starts out with an in-depth anecdote of a swimmer training.  The anecdote is mimetic and resonated with me. The first person viewpoint was very powerful in its ability to provide me with an experiential example of the phenomenology being studied.   Many parts of the anecdote resonated with me and I felt that there were parts of it that could have been my experience. 

The Discussion

By the end of the article, I was completely engaged in Heather Devine’s discussion.  The article starts with five quotes and all five of the quotes could have come from me:

“I train three times a week.”

“I work out regularly.”

“I’m taking fitness classes.”

“I get a lot of exercise.”

“I practice for an hour a day.”

This instant “drawing in” not only connected me personally but also opened me up to the discussion and questions she raises throughout the article. Using a series of questions, Heather assembles the pieces to support the need for further study into the lived experiences of people who train for themselves, not for competition. “The experiential descriptions of these individuals will reveal commonalities of experience and hopefully a consensus of sorts upon the lived-world of intentional physical exercise; a consensus not clouded by concerns about competition or ‘goals’ but based on the act of training-complete in itself’” (para. 31).  Devine identifies that “much of the spiritual aspects of sport has yet to be explored, particularly that which is inherent in the more mundane aspects of sport such as physical conditioning.”

Although a person may start training to “get fit” what keeps them going?  Those of us who are not competing to win, who are not the elite athlete, what keeps us going?  She talks about transcendence and the “experiences of mind/body oneness”; surrender not only of the body but of the soul” and that it is the “lasting residue of these transcendent training moments” that spurs on people who train.

One paragraph from Heather’s article was particularly powerful for me:

Why do people train?  They train to gain a sense of the universe, a sense of the limitlessness of their own potential, that sense of power and freedom and ecstasy one feels when there is the realization that there are no boundaries, that one can do anything that one can lose oneself in experience, can surrender one’s rational being-in-the-world and come back, renewed and stronger than before.

The Workout: the Phenomenology of Training raises some very pertinent and powerful questions regarding fitness training and the essence of training.  Heather Devine has been able to highlight the importance of examining the essence of intentional physical exercise.

Personal experience:

I recently completed my first ½ marathon (thanksgiving weekend) and am still dwelling in the experience.  What kept me going during my training?  Although I found myself doing much of my training by myself, I was never alone in the sense that I was always sharing my victories with myself.  It was during those times that I was able to connect with the "power" within myself that I would persevere pushing myself.  Enjoying the experience. This is what kept me going in the dark, in the rain, through the pain!  I had no hope of finishing first! However, I did come in somewhere around 2600^th and felt indescribably happy!

What we run for we shall never reach, and that is the heart and glory of it.  In the end, running is its own reward.  It can never be justified.  We run for the sake of running, nothing more (Leonard, 1974 in Devine).