Q: Quiet Time (WR)

Quiet Time

In this day of electronic devices, how often do you see people walking with earbuds on listening to some sort of mp3 player or smart phone. I tend to be guilty of that too.

What is missed is hearing all of the sounds that exist in our natural world. When it comes to writing, that is where a lot of our creativity comes from.

When I was teaching 6th grade, I used to take my class out on day trips or overnight trips to stay at nature preserves. The one activity that I liked the most, as did the kids, was Quiet Time.

Here were the rules:

• Each student had to find a spot anywhere on the grounds within visual and hearing distance of me and be prepared to stay there for at least a half an hour in total silence. They could bring writing materials and/or drawing materials with them.
• Once they found their spot they had to sit there absolutely quiet for the full time.
• As the leader, I would ask the students to close their eyes for at least the first 5 minutes and just listen and feel. I might give them some prompts based on what I was hearing or feeling. (Can you hear the wind, the birds? Can you feel the sun, air? What do you smell? )
• After the 5 minutes were up I let them open their eyes and create whatever they wanted with the materials that they had brought with them having them continue to listen, but now they could add sight to what they observed.
• After the half hour, we would share.

We did Quiet time once a day while we were on those overnights. Quiet time brought out the best writing and illustrations that my students ever did. What was great about Quiet time, was that once I had taught the concepts to my students and they got to experience it outside in a quiet natural environment, I could now choose to have them do it at other types of environments, such as the school playground, in the classroom (which worked great on rainy days) and even out on the playground. It was amazing how the students internalized the idea of being quiet and listening to sounds around them even in a noisy atmosphere and then create.

There’s a folktale about listening that fits Quiet time, which had I known it way back then, I probably would have shared it with my class, before introducing Quiet time to them. You can read a version of it here: Wisdom Stories – The Cricket – Sacinandana Swami

Here are some of the writings and pictures that some of my students created during Quiet time (You might have to zoom in to make the writing more readable:

So if you want to be creative take out those earbuds, find a quiet spot, close your eyes and become one with your environment. Then write, draw, play music, sing or do anything you want that expresses what you’re doing. And share. Have fun.