The Power to Speak Silences I want to ask a question I have something to say But even thinking about raising my hand Makes by heart pound into my throat Makes my leg swing nervously Makes me fight or flight Why is this so scary? Why are genuine questions – where we don’t know the answer – so hard to ask? And why is it so hard to question experts? As a teacher, I know that being considered an expert makes it intimidating for people to ask you questions I’ll speak a silence: many teachers are afraid of being asked a question they don’t have an answer to Students are also afraid of being asked a question they don’t know the answer to, or of asking ‘stupid’ questions So in most classrooms, teachers and students want answers Teachers give them, students repeat them Which keeps both of them from asking genuine questions – the ones they don’t have answers to At first I thought that teachers just hadn’t realized that asking questions – especially ones that come from and are relevant to students – is a more effective way to teach and learn Then I started to talk to colleagues about this, and found out that they are too focused on ‘covering the material’ to allow time for student questions Not too surprising - the conventional role of teachers is to fill empty minds With (supposedly) the most important (elite) knowledge that (white, bourgeois, colonial, patriarchal) society has produced In order to make (elite) young people into ‘upstanding’ and ‘productive’ members of society Apparently, education is about quantity of knowledge professed to relatively inert and passive students But there is so much more to learning than covering the material Students can read it later, or go look it up in the library They can read lecture notes online (which many of them do instead of coming to lecture, and who can blame them) But they only have the time in our classes to dialogue with this unique group of learners (and I include teachers here as well) To apply what they have been learning in the university to their lives To make connections To figure out their own ideas

Krista Hunt 2009 www.teachlearnchange.org

To test them out To build community To find their voices To ask their questions To figure out how to make change To learn beyond the boundaries of the classroom, the discipline, the university, And to challenge outdated ways of living and learning How much space do we allow our students to take up in the classroom? Do we encourage them to ask questions? Do we ask our own? Or do we say diversity, democracy, voice, anti-oppression And then do hierarchy, authority, expert knowledge, discipline? For those of us who have given up some power How do we encourage students that have been so well disciplined, or scared, or told that their voices and their questions don’t matter Who refuse to speak To ask their questions Where do their unasked questions go when they don’t? How much do we all lose from that? To ask a question is to expose myself Expose what I don’t yet know Which I have been taught is a flaw To not know To be stupid And yet, to not ask is to be silent To be complicit in some ways Because to speak is to take a stand And yet far too often speaking is valued over listening Once people learn to speak through their fear Then sometimes they can’t shut up Maybe they were silent for such a long time that they cannot stop speaking And they get angry when you ask them to listen Because isn’t this about learning to speak, to argue, to have a position? Yes, but it is also about learning FROM others Yes, even you have something to learn from other people in the class All of them You need to learn to listen Because learning doesn’t happen when anyone is talking all the time Because learning is about dialogue So why is this such a hard lesson for some teachers and students to learn?

Krista Hunt 2009 www.teachlearnchange.org

Do we have something invested in not teaching and learning how to ask questions In only having certain voices speak? If everyone has space to question When everything is on the table Then we will have to really start thinking about what is going on Because those questions are also being asked of us In places where it won’t be so easy to hide behind disembodied theories Where we will be called to praxis what we preach To examine the power we wield and the privileges we enjoy at expense of others How these discussions are not just academic That we see through the charade and call you out to try learning for a change To become actively aware of the politics that we all engage in every moment of everyday This is a call for those of us who speak to listen To those of us who are silent(ced) This is the power of your questions This is the power of your classrooms This is your power in every moment The power to speak silences Krista Hunt, 2009

Krista Hunt 2009 www.teachlearnchange.org