1. SILENCE IS SILVER
After walking into the classroom confidently on my first day of teaching,
scrawling my name in capital letters across the blackboard, and handing out
star-shaped nametags for the students, there was an awkward silence. I sat at
my desk at the front of the room and no one spoke. As I stared at their
nametags and wondered who would break the silence, I had a sudden and
illuminating realization–
it was me.
I was supposed to speak now, I was the one expected to fill the hush and endow
college students with 90-education-packed minutes. That’s when the true
horizon of teaching loomed before me—this was more than banging on the desk
as students fought each other to share their opinions on current events, as I had
fantasized. This was the type of calling that only the brave may answer.
I immediately panicked and pointed at a nametag at random. I asked them
about any current events they were interested in. They said the March on Wall
Street campaigns. I said “good, good,” and then there was silence again.
I told them to take out their pens and papers and spent the next 30 minutes
asking them to write about a great conversation or interesting headline they had
had or read recently. Every now and then I would interrupt the scribbling with
assurances that this WOULD be graded; it sounded very teacher and
important. They certainly looked more serious after I said it.
I collected their papers and took time to shuffle them, read the first line of one,
and then make eye contact with the student whose name tag matched the name
at the top of the page. The student would shuffle uncomfortably and I would
make a hmm sound, and then look back down at the paper. I took 5 minutes to
record who had done the assignment (everyone) in my gradebook. Once I
finished all of this posturing, there was still 20 minutes left in class. I stood up
and lifted both of my hands over their hands like a magnanimous Queen.
“Since it’s the first day, I’ll let you leave early,” I said and then chuckled fondly
as they dashed for the door. Little did they know my relief that I was free, as
well.

2. I hadn’t planned for what would come after the nametags. I hadn’t remembered
that I was the one supposed to speak. I was so used to sitting on the other side
of the teacher’s desk, just listening, that I forgot how to voice my own ideas in a
classroom.
The silence that day was a valuable lesson. Not a golden one, but silver – still
valuable, but not perfect.
As I wait out that awkward silence on every first day of every class, I remember
that my next words are the ones that will affect the course of my students’
experience. It’s daunting, but fulfilling. The students fill out their nametags
and tentatively raise their hands to answer that very first question. Rather than
always try to pack the silence with my tutelage, I must instead teach them to fill
the silence themselves, to use their own words to become masters of a craft that
will be utilized in every aspect of their life.