A teacher uses silence as a pedagogical tool by posing difficult questions and waiting for silence to develop. The initial discomfort can shift into a heightened attunement to questions, emerging ideas, and the people in the room. Children often handle quiet time better than adults, with fewer distractions and more natural daydreaming and wondering. Silence can also be used strategically, including to evade detection or to apply the silent treatment against controlling adults. Picture book biographies present silence as resistance, protest, and a pathway to awareness. One biography traces Marcel Marceau’s escape from Nazi occupation, his involvement in the Resistance, and his use of wordless performance to influence German soldiers to surrender.
"A practicing Buddhist, Eve would pose a question (often a very difficult one) and wait as silence bloomed. It was terrible in the beginning, like being in a stalled elevator with strangers. But once the tension reached its pitch, something else would take its place: a finer attunement to the question, to emerging ideas and to the individuals sitting in a circle in the room."
"For years I've tried to incorporate Eve's approach into my own teaching, but the impulse to fill those silences can be fierce. Young children tend to be more open to silence than grown-ups. They have a reputation for being loud and unruly, but they arguably do quiet time better than we do. No podcasts, no background music; just wondering and daydreams."
"They also understand the power of keeping quiet, whether it's to evade detection or to wield the silent treatment against forbidding, punishing adults. Three new picture book biographies consider ways that silence can be used to great effect: as resistance, as protest and as a pathway to awareness."
"THE NOT SO QUIET LIFE OF MARCEL MARCEAU (Levine Querido, 48 pp., $19.99, ages 4 to 8), written by Jenn Bailey and Sherry Bushue, tells the origin story of the world's most famous mime, who as a teenager fled the Nazi occupation of Strasbourg, France, with his family; joined his older brother in the Resistance; and led at least 70 Jewish orphans to safety by posing as a Boy Scout leader."
Read at www.nytimes.com
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