Silence Wins

I freaked my high school students out on Monday. I didn’t say one word the entire class period. Instead, I sat in silence writing down observations about them. It was very interesting to watch how they responded. Some were trying to figure out what I was doing and why I was being quiet. They really wanted to know what I was writing down! One theory they came up with was that they were in trouble for something, while others figured it was “some teaching technique.”

The next day I asked them to tell me what they could remember about the class.  They listed five-six things, and then I unloaded my 2.5 half pages of observations ranging from what people were wearing to how people responded to my silence.  It is remarkable what you can learn about people when you take the time to focus on them. It was a fun exercise, but there was a point to my silence.

I’m trying to teach the students that if we really want to understand Jesus and his message, we need to take the time and effort to really reflect and meditate on the biblical passages. Like good detectives, we need to gather all the facts before we begin to make conclusions about what it means. Once we are confident that we know what the text says, then we can begin to postulate what it means, and the best way to really learn what it says is to sit in silence and just observe.