Over the Wall of Silence

14 Over the Wall of Silence

when observing a colleague’s class. “Playing dead” is not really ab errant behavior in the classroom in Japan. At this point, it’s alarmingly easy to point fingers and stick stere otypes on people, such as “Japanese students are passive.” But these clichés don’t really help anyone. Let’s try to get more practical. What we want to find is a simple model that explains the situation, and the cultural logic at play, from both perspectives of teacher and stu dent, without falling into the trap of stereotyping.

Frozen student

It might be helpful to think about the situation like this. These reactions are puzzling to a foreign teacher because in the West a student’s basic duty in that situation is to respond promptly . They could say anything they like, or even just make a sound that shows that they are thinking. But if they remain silent they are “keeping the floor.” This means that the classroom is literally placed on pause, and the class cannot move forward. What’s more, the teacher’s au thority is questioned, implicitly but in a very strong way.