ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Marc Helgesen

Peter Viney

Curtis Kelly

Chuck Sandy

Chris Hunt

Panelists: Marc | Peter | Curtis | Chuck | Chris
Date: January 2005

Topic: "Should "real world" tragedy be brought into the classroom?"

Chuck Sandy

There are times when even our own language fails us, and it is then, through silence, that we come to terms with that which is beyond ordinary comprehension. Because we are all alone in our individual thoughts, it is often only when we are gathered with compassionate others that we can begin to make sense of the incomprehensible. Yet silence is not the opposite of language, nor is being alone the exact opposite of being a part of a group.

“Silence is not the opposite of language, nor is being alone the exact opposite of being a part of a group.”

This was illustrated in a very moving way at the opening plenary of last year’s JALT conference when Jim Swan opened that session with a minute of silence in response to the brutal murder of seven-year-old girl in Nara. This murder had taken place very recently, somewhere very close to where everyone had gathered. It was on everyone’s mind and an unavoidable topic of conversation as friends met up outside the plenary site. Still, in these informal conversations, what was most often mentioned was first horror and astonishment that anyone could do such a thing to a little girl, and then the horrendous facts of the case. People pieced together what information they had and shook their heads in dismay. There really was not that much to say.

Then, in a room with well over a thousand people it all coalesced in that minute of silence. Thoughts and prayers turned both inward and outward at the same time. Each person was alone with his or her thoughts, but united with others as well. One could feel the gathered and focused energy in the moment. Silence and language, alone but together, and what did it accomplish? That silence united us, and in so doing, allowed us to move forward in the thoughtful way we then did. To have done nothing in the face of the tragedy circling around us would have been unthinkable, yet to have done more with words would not have been enough. That moment of silence was the one appropriate response. Jim Swan, a true teacher, knew this and brought the group together in silence.

Not long ago a member of my small poetry seminar walked into class and burst into tears. She had just learned that her beloved grandfather had died, and came to class because she wanted to be with us rather than alone with her grief. There was, as is always the case in such situations, not much of real value that could be said. Yet we comforted her as we could and then, gathered in our usual comfortable circle, offered a minute of silence and prayer in honor of her grandfather. Together, united in that silence, we were able to hold up our classmate in a way that none of us could do singly with words. The class then continued with each of us sharing our work for the week, even much more focused than usual, with everyone even much more sensitive to the feeling of others. At the end of class, the student whose grandfather had died lingered behind to thank me for the prayers, then added that the normalcy of later continuing on with our work was a help to her. Then she burst into tears again, and though I could have spoken to her in either of the languages available to us, I did the only thing I could do at that moment. I hugged her tight.

In a first draft of this essay I began by lamenting that although we strive to promote communication in our classes we often do not in fact communicate much. The truth, though, is at times and in any language, even in our own, there really is not much that can be said. What true words are there in response to the murder of a child? What language is there to comfort one who has lost a family member? What do you say in the face of a natural disaster that sweeps away the lives of over 150,000 people in a handful of instants?

There is no language for tragedy, yet we as teachers are sometimes put into the position of being our group’s center ­ the person who all look towards for guidance and understanding. Whether we are language teachers or math teachers, humanities professors or lecturers in one of the sciences, it is at such times that we need to strip whatever content area we have from in front of our title and remember that we are first of all teachers of the human heart, charged at least to some extent with the pastoral care of our students. Then, we know it is up to us to bring the group together, united in silence, and to offer anyone grieving whatever compassion and connection we can.

Panelists: Marc | Peter | Curtis | Chuck | Chris

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Chuck Sandy, Chubu University

Co-author of two series from CUP, Passages and Connect

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