Young 1

Miranda Young

William Reader

ENG 111. M18

19 March 2019

Silence: Is it right? Is it wrong?

As an adult learner in my first year of college I have quickly come to realize there is a

difference in the teaching atmosphere and level of communication expected from us students

when comparing college to my high school. When I was still attending high school students were

expected to remain silent during a lecture, for doing the opposite of this expectation would result

in disciplinary actions taken by the teacher. Such actions include, being given a warning or being

sent to the Principal's office for not taking the previous warning seriously. The authority figures

of my high school ran a “tight ship”, meaning only they had the power to teach or give

information, and we students were to retain this information without question or participation in

the lecture. Now, looking at my present situation in college, it is almost as if the expectations are

completely opposite. In any of my college classes students are expected to participate and share

their thoughts on the curriculum. My instructors encourage class discussions so that all students

have the opportunity to share their thoughts and ask questions. Overall, the atmosphere is more

“laid back”.

Changing from an environment where people are prohibited to participate to one that

encourages their participation is a difficult transition to make. The main cause of its difficulty is

the habit of remaining silent that has been taught to us through many environments and

experiences outside the classroom or within. Such as, being silent as a child when their parent

gives a lecture on their behavior, being silent as a grandchild when their grandparent is showing
 Young 2

them how to make cookies, being silent as a student when their teacher is teaching a lesson,

being silent as a citizen when their local police man pulls their car over and writes them a ticket

for speeding, or being silent as a “church goer” when their pastor is leading them in prayer.

Those are only a few examples of when someone can be expected to remain silent, but there are

numerous other situations or environments where people are taught to be silent at specific points

in time and they carry this learned expectation to their college classroom. I know that I am not

the only one struggling with this change; there are many new college students dealing with the

same issue as myself. Because of this change in expectations, students struggle to adapt to a new

way of learning and it is hindering their growth in education. Looking at the bigger picture, the

lack of oral participation in other areas of a person's life puts them, as new adult college students,

at a disadvantage.

This new and unfamiliar change in the environment causes students to struggle with

retaining information because they are also trying to simultaneously adapt to a new way of

learning. Simultaneously trying to take in new information, that is being taught in a completely

different manner than what they have been taught for many years through their own personal

background and experiences, and attempting to understand the process of this new way of

learning make being an adult learner that much harder. The adult students are already struggling

with the concept of learning the information being given to them, but now they are also being

expected to somehow magically change how they have always learned and instead speak freely

about the curriculum.

A great example of an adult learner who had struggled in a new learning process is Perri

Klass, a former medical student that wrote an article about her experience while becoming a

medical professional. In her article, “Learning the Language”, she explains the type of language
 Young 3

she learned and how it is properly used, “I picked up not only the specific expressions but also

the patterns of speech and the grammatical conventions; for example, you never say that a

patient’s blood pressure fell or that his cardiac enzymes rose. Instead, the patient is always the

subject of the verb: ‘He dropped his pressure.’ ‘He bumped his enzymes.’” (62). Klass did

successfully learn a new language, but an issue still remains: she's using the language without

understanding its importance or why those specific words were chosen to have that specific

meaning. Like Klass many adult learners have this same problem, and it is primarily caused by

students remaining silent in the classroom. As stated before, like many adult college students,

Klass successfully learned a new language and used it without understanding its importance. She

memorized the words and phrases, but didn’t understand why those words and phrases were

there or for what purpose. Students simply memorize information without taking the additional

step needed, oral participation in the classroom, to understand why it is the way it is. So, in turn,

they will not be able to successfully use this knowledge in the real world for lack of

understanding its specific purpose. It wasn’t until Klass began working in the field for a while

that she finally grasped the importance of her medical language.

Knowledge is power, it helps us grow and evolve into something bigger and better than

before. Knowledge is meant to be used outside the classroom, yet so many students struggle to

use it. To further explain the students inability to use the knowledge they are taught in the real

world, Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator, provides a teachers view on the situation in his article,

“The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education”. Freire talks about the “banking” concept in his writing,

how it affects students, and the struggles, for students, that follow it. In his article he explains,

“the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive,

memorize, and repeat”, “the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as
 Young 4

receiving, filing, and storing the deposits” (Freire 1). Freire explains that the “banking” concept

is used when a teacher gives a lecture or “deposits” information into the students mind while

prohibiting student participation. Students are only allowed to retain information given by the

teacher and are not to question the knowledge provided to them, which makes it nearly

impossible for the students to be able to understand how to apply that information outside of the

classroom. If students are only allowed to sit and absorb, how will they be able to ask questions

in order to understand how that knowledge is used? For example, students are taught that each of

our states have a capital, but what they do not know is why that city is the chosen capital or why

we even have capitals. Which relates back to Klass’s struggles with understanding her medical

language, she could not comprehend why specific words are used for certain reasons.Which, in

turn, caused her to be unable to use them properly until she fully understood their meaning and

purpose.

Our experiences have a way of shaping who we are, how we process things, how we

formulate responses to situations. If we aren’t careful these experiences can cause difficulties in

other types of environments that go against what our experiences have taught us. Elaborating in

this idea, Jack Mezirow, emeritus professor of adult education, explains a professional view on

the topic. In his article, “Transformative Learning: Theory to Practice”, he explains how past

learned habits can negatively impact a students current learning situation. Mezirow explains a

person's frame of reference as, “the structures of assumptions through which we understand our

experiences”,”A frame of reference encompasses cognitive, conative, and emotional

components” (87). Here, Mezirow is saying that our past experiences in life shape how we

respond or take action to situations in the present; we act on what we know. Through these

experiences we create habits of mind we are, often times, unaware of. Continuing Mezirow’s
 Young 5

thoughts, “Habits of mind are broad, abstract, orientating, habitual ways of thinking, feelings,

acting influenced by assumptions that constitute a set of codes. These codes may be cultural,

social, educational, economic, political, or psychological” (87). Our personal set of codes are

created by what we perceive as the correct way of doing things; much of which codes we were

taught. In turn of having a frame of reference, we unknowingly create habits of mind that our

past experiences have guided us to use. What is being said here relates back to Freire’s

“banking” concept, students view being silent in the classroom as the correct thing to do because

that is what their past experiences taught them to do. So, the action of remaining silent is now a

habit of mind.

Being in a new learning environment can provide students with such a tremendous

amount of stress and pressure to succeed that they end up failing. The student becomes so

overwhelmed with stress that they forget they can ask for help and continue to remain quiet in

the classroom and try to learn on their own. Mike Rose, an educational psychologist at the

University of California, Los Angeles talks with struggling students and helps them for a living.

In his article, “The Politics of Remediation”, he examines some of the students he works with

and studies their struggles with learning. A good example of a student that he examined is

Andrea, a “distressed young woman who was failing chemistry. Andrea comes from a family of

successful people and wished to make them proud. Schooling never used to be a problem for her

until she enrolled in college Chemistry. In her class she could memorize facts and formulas but

not use them to solve problems” (114). Andrea’s Chemistry class caused her to become stressed

because she had never had difficulty passing a class before, and because of this stress she forgot

that she had the resources to get the help she needs to understand the curriculum, but instead of

asking questions she kept being quiet in her class and tried to teach herself because doing so used
 Young 6

to help her succeed before. Or as Mezirow would say, her frame of reference will not allow her

to break free from her habits of mind, being self taught without the stress of not understanding

the curriculum, in order for her to fully comprehend the information being given to her in her

chemistry class.

Many adult learners, like myself, struggle in their present situation in college and are

trying to change from being silent in the classroom to actively participating in discussions. As

students enter college they begin to realize that the way they were once taught before, through

their own personal experiences, to remain silent and retain any information an authority figure

provides without question, is different from what is expected from students as adult learners in

college. Students that have just entered college are expected to ask questions and participate in

lectures. Trying to make the transition between the two environments is what’s causing the

problem to be difficult, mainly because new adult learners have already made a habit of being

quiet in the classroom. The habit of which was created by past experiences and portrayed being

silent as the correct behavior to withhold. So, in conclusion, the lack of oral participation in other

areas of a person's life puts them, as new adult college students, at a disadvantage.

Works Cited

Freire, Paulo. “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education” Composing Knowledge: Readings for

College Writers. Ed. Rolf Norgaard. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007, pp. 1-12.

Perri, Klass. “Learning the Language” Exploring Connections: Learning in the 21st Century,

Pearson, 2016, pp. 61-64.

Mezirow, Jack. “Transformative Learning: Theory to Practice.” Exploring Connections:

 Young 7

Learning in the 21st Century, Pearson, 2016, pp. 86-93.

Rose, Mike. “The Politics of Remediation.” Exploring Connections: Learning in the 21st

Century, Pearson, 2016, pp. 99-124.