I've been in schools where the students were "shhhh--ed" EVERYWHERE! I was
amazed at the number of teachers who wanted complete silence everywhere in
one school...and this was in an elementary school!
The "last straw" for me was when I was in the cafeteria and there were about
300 students eating and talking "quietly"--as quietly as you can with 300 of
your closest friends around--- and the administrators were standing at the
front of the cafeteria with a microphone yelling to these students to quit
talking! I was furious because I felt that there had to be SOME PLACE for
these kids to have some type of conversation.
Each of the tables were monitored by teachers standing at the ends, so it
wasn't like there wasn't supervision to immediately tap a student on the
shoulder to remind them to use a lower voice. For me it was tense to eat
lunch in that situation, so I can't imagine how it was for these students
each day in that school.
The library was silent, the classrooms were filled with a slight
"hummingbird buzz" with students working "cooperatively together"---as they
asked them to do, but otherwise, most of what I heard when I walked down the
halls were the loud, bull-frog voices of teachers screaming at their
children to "shut up!" (No, joke! Some of these people sounded like
rejects from the Jerry Springer show!)
I was reminded of teacher conferences where everyone there (educators) was
disruptive and unruly through their excessive talking and wondered if it was
so hypocritical to demand that students stay muted throughout their daily
school experiences.
(Yes, this was a school in Texas...Fort Worth. But despite the inner-urban
setting, I don't believe that students should be demoralized in a setting
that should allow them to blossom. To me, this was too much like a prison
setting than a school.... The interesting thing to me was that when I worked
with a few of these students alone, they did talk normally, were cheerful,
excited, and "bounced back" to the classroom after I was finished with them.
It was once they were back in the classroom that I realized that I was
probably not helping them "survive" in this setting because their enthusiasm
about what we had worked on caught them in a "let-me-tell-you-what-we-did"
state. They wanted to share with their teacher when we returned to class,
but were immediately told to "sit down and shut up"....fire extinguished!)
I stayed in that position for only one year.
~Shonda Brisco
Trinity Valley MS / US Librarian
Fort Worth, TX
sbrisco021@charter.net
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