True Story 7.19
Professor ponders student silence in Japan:
A story in two parts
The setting for parts 1 and 2 of this story
Dani, a Canadian professor of women’s studies, took up a post at a Japanese university teaching her specialty to students of English. Her students’ “wall of silence” soon discouraged her. Here’s how Dani recalls those days.
Part 1
A story of misaligned minds30
I had anticipated lively classrooms in Japan not only because this had always been my experience with Canadian students but also because, on a needs analysis questionnaire I gave my students during the first class, they had stated a desire for small group and class discussions. Did not happen.
I would have been totally discouraged by my students’ wall of silence if it hadn’t been for the lively reflections in their journals. The dichotomy between their silence in class and their lengthy, candid journal entries was fascinating. The journals offered me a wealth of insight and information.
When my course ended, I used a questionnaire to ascertain the students’ ratings of its topics in terms of interest and usefulness. Combining these metrics with those I’d gathered from my analysis of their journals, I found that the more they disagreed with a topic (e.g., androgyny), the more pages they had devoted to it in their journals and the higher they rated its interest and usefulness.
I had assumed silence meant that they were bored or found the topic irrelevant or distasteful. Instead, it signaled disagreement, questioning, and profound reflection. The journals seemed to provide a non-threatening forum for extended and forthright expression of my students’ thoughts.
Dani’s first question
My students desired class discussions. They had plenty to say. Why didn’t they say it during class?
Critique of story 7.19, part 1
Americans and Canadians aren’t well suited to explore why, in some societies, students remain silent during lessons. Our own time as students occurred in classrooms where learner-focused progressive pedagogy held sway; we were expected, even coerced (via grades for “participation”), to be vocally responsive. Later, our teacher training took as a self-evident truth that “student engagement” is indispensable. Passive students cannot learn! Consequently, a classroom of quiet students makes us nervous, self-critical, and eager to find explanations.
Because we’re individualists, our explanations typically point to what we believe to be the students’ internal states. Sometimes we are sympathetic: they are shy, confused, struggling with English. These can be on target. Sometimes we’re accusatory: they’re apathetic, defiant, empty-headed. Research has shown that these aren’t often accurate. Dani, for example, found in her students’ journals that their minds were buzzing with relevant queries and ideas during and after class. They were mentally engaged. Just not in a way she could hear, see, or otherwise detect in their physical behavior while class was in session.
So what’s the explanation for their strong preference for silence while a class is in session?
East Asian students share their societies’ communitarian values, which prioritize hierarchy, face-preservation, and reverence for academic knowledge. These values drive East Asians’ preference for knowledge-focused classrooms, a characteristic of which is deep respect for teachers and for their stores of learning. Classroom lessons have a unique status: they are reserved solely for receipt of whatever wisdom the teacher has decided to share that day. Do we in the West have any recurring venue or social situation that is comparable?
Yes! We see it during most religious services in the worshipers’ attitude and behavior. They listen to the pastor, priest, rabbi, or imam. No one asks questions. No one interjects comments.31 Their demeanor says, “We are receptive to your message.” When the service ends, discussions begin.
Even though students from societies with knowledge-focused classrooms prefer to remain silent during lessons, they sometimes do speak up. Two examples: A teacher was discussing nonverbal differences across cultures; when she came to the practices of Koreans, only one Korean student was present. Though he previously had remained silent, he now talked at length and demonstrated Korean nonverbal behavior. Another teacher was frustrated because he couldn’t get his English-as-a-second-language students to talk about people’s personal characteristics. Then he tried a new idea: He asked them what qualities they look for in a boy- or girlfriend. Worked like a charm.32
Why didn’t Dani’s students speak up when they had plenty to say? We can’t be certain. What we can say is this: Classroom silence is never a sure sign that students are not engaged mentally.
For thought
Our U.S. classroom experience of students discussing the day’s topic features their speaking up, even debating with each other spontaneously. But wait; must classroom discussion occur spontaneously to be worthwhile? Try a new approach: Have students prepare outside of class to discuss topics in class. This is far more palatable for those who fear they’ll lose face by speaking extemporaneously. You could ask a small group to create and perform something they script in advance, even a debate. Students in many world regions expect to mentally prepare for class.
Part 2
A continuing story of misaligned minds33
I had become acutely aware of the differences between my, and my students’, expectations and values regarding classroom interactions. Guided by treatises on reflective teaching, I pondered my professional role and relationships in Japan. What was the real purpose of the women’s studies course I was teaching? Whose interests are being served? Who has the power in my classroom?
I realized that in the West we treat students as receptacles of information, as in Paulo Freire’s “banking model” of education.* Students are conceived as accounts into which teachers deposit knowledge. Freire’s liberatory pedagogy shared my feminist goal: helping to dismantle oppressive power relationships by helping young women become aware of power imbalances.
My students’ dogged resistance to this insight was, for me, bewildering – and irritating. In the end, I was driven to the conclusion that I was too ignorant of their culture to properly teach mine
Dani’s follow-up question
Freire’s theories made sense but were useless in practice. So where can I turn for insights now?
Critique of story 7.19, part 2
Dani’s conclusion, that she was too ignorant of her students’ Japanese culture, was on target. Unfortunately, she didn’t simultaneously conclude that she was too ignorant of her own American culture to properly teach in a Japanese university – or in any university outside the West.
Despite wondering how cultural factors were complicating her teaching, Dani never broke free of her individualistic mindset, never questioned her own society’s view of teaching. Regrettably, she took as her guide a Brazilian philosopher who intended to relieve the plight of the powerless poor. Not relevant! Freire’s preoccupation with issues of power was, for Dani, a red herring.
When the events related in this story occurred, several books and journal articles were readily available that explained to outsiders the values, habits of thought, and social expectations of the Japanese.34 Also available were books and journal articles explaining American-inspired Western culture to outsiders – and to insiders like Dani. Why didn’t she consult resources like these?
Had Dani also strived for insight into her own culture, she eventually might have recognized that her perspective, like that of the Japanese, is one of several alternatives for conceiving of pedagogy in general and the culture of the classroom in particular. No perspective is effective everywhere; each is a complex system that gradually coalesced in response to local realities.
For the Japanese, a comfortable way of being is to fit into hierarchically ordered relationships. As learners, the Japanese feel confident when they have an academically advanced teacher to authoritatively deposit knowledge into their minds. Knowledge-focused instruction works well for them. Who has the power? The teacher has the power, of course!
For thought
Dani’s mental struggle focused on how to conceive of her Japanese classroom using her power-conscious Western perspective. How might this story have played out if, instead, Dani’s struggle had focused on how to adapt herself, a guest in Japanese society, to the Japanese culture of learning?
Related stories
Story 10.15 offers another perspective on why Asians prefer not to talk during formal meetings. Stories 7.01 and 7.03 also discuss teachers’ expectations regarding their students’ behavior. Regarding this sentence in Part 1 – “Because we’re individualists, our explanations typically point to what we believe to be the students’ internal states” – see story 4.14 for elucidation.
* Paulo Freire (1921–1997) was an educator and philosopher from Brazil. Growing up in poverty during the Great Depression, he gained convictions about the relationship between social class and knowledge. Although he acquired a law degree, he worked as a secondary school teacher for a few years before moving up into administrative posts. Freire’s most influential book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), established him as the foundational thinker of the “critical pedagogy” movement. He argued that teaching school is inherently a political act and should be done in such a way that oppressed populations become better prepared to remake themselves, take responsibility for their situation in life, and lift themselves out of their unfortunate conditions.
Go to Chapter 1 Quick-Links | Go to Chapter 4 Quick-Links | Return to Chapter 7 Quick-Links | Go to Chapter 10 Quick-Links
Endnotes:
30 Dyer, 156¬–58, 160.
31 I’m aware that, in some Pentecostal Protestant denominations, it is common for congregants to loudly interject comments such as “Praise the Lord!” and “Hallelujah!” Their intention is not to interrupt the flow of the sermon but rather to signal agreement with and encouragement for the person who’s delivering the sermon.
32 Li & Jia, 198–204.
33 Dyer, 154–55.
34 As just one example, a book entitled With Respect to the Japanese, by John C. Condon, had been published by Intercultural Press in 1984, well before Dani taught in Japan. The second edition of this book is available from Hachette; it now has a co-author and the subtitle Going to Work in Japan.
Full citations are available at misalignedminds.info/References.