“Mright, can I go out and be quiet? ». In the primary school of Gressoney-La-Trinité children are free to raise their hand and ask to leave for silence, with the same ease with which they ask: “Teacher, can I go to the services?”.
Here, in fact, for five years, the practice of silence, as a training and teaching tool, it is part of the program. Said this way, it might not seem like a big news: the game of silence has long been the ploy of adults to keep children good.
Children who ask for silence at school
“I don’t want to hear a fly fly” was the recurring phrase of a certain “black” pedagogy. But there is silence and silence. There is the menacing one and the caressing one; what is trap and what is nest; the one that says “run away” and the one that says “stay here”. “That practiced in the Gressoney school it is not a passive silence, imposed from the outside, which holds back the voice, but lets thoughts swarm »explains Giuseppe Barbiero, biologist at the University of Valle d’Aosta.
“It is a type of silence we call active, which arises from the inside, spontaneously, after the children (and the adults who accompany them) have learned how to practice ».
A skill that is learned
According to the expert, in fact, silence can be educated like any other competence. “At first, children struggle, perhaps because they don’t know him. Especially those who live in urban contexts, who are not so used to hearing the sound of a leaf when it falls, the flapping of a blackbird’s wings while taking a bath, a snowflake that rocks lightly. but yet as soon as they learn to use it, they like silence, they look for it when they feel they need it or simply want it ».
The innovative school of Gressoney
In the Gressoney school, to familiarize themselves with silence, the pupils practice a series of exercises for four or five months: one of these consists in imitating the movement of clouds that cross any obstacle without friction. “The sense of peace and lightness they experience it predisposes them to become more in tune with their mates: they learn to tune their pace, to stay together without prodding each other »explains Barbiero.
From Steiner to Montessori
“They are not difficult exercises. They only require a desire to get involved, especially on the part of the teaching staff ». Fifteen years of studies Not even the practice of silence in school is new. There are traces, for example, in the Waldorf or Steinerian pedagogy and in writings of Maria Montessorthe. But it is in the hypermodern society that it is acquiring more and more relevance.
So much so that for fifteen years the team ofUniversity of the Aosta Valley coordinated by Barbiero, who is also the director of the Affective Ecology Laboratory (a branch of ecology that studies the cognitive and emotional relationships between human beings and the living world), has observed and scientifically measured the effects generated by this practice in some schools in Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta.
To the art of Zen
In particular, in that of Gerbole di Rivalta (Turin), where since 2002 the Buddhist nun Doju Dinajara Freire, in collaboration with the teacher Maria Ferrando, had introduced the educational project “Space to Silence” to facilitate those students who, according to the teachers, despite being very intelligent and quick to learn, they struggled to stay focusedthe.
In this laboratory, the ancient tradition of Zen, whose origin dates back to 2500 years ago with the experience of the Buddha, it was proposed to children invited to practice it by assuming the classic lotus position, (which involves the right foot resting on the left thigh and the left foot on the right thigh) and through a series of games.
Improve listening
The effects generated by this practice are surprising: “Where children freely experience silence, they become not only calmer but also more alert, because silence helps them to recover from mental fatigue faster, improving their ability to listen and observe ».
A not inconsiderable result given that the lack of concentration is one of the problems most frequently encountered in elementary school. The mechanism, adds the biologist, is clear: “The reduction of sound stimuli, and sometimes also visual, quiet the breath and, consequently, the mind also calms down. In this way, direct and sustained attention (which is required when studying intensely) can rest and regenerate, making learning possible again ».
The first “biophile” school
At the Gressoney-La-Trinité school, Barbiero underlines, “thanks to the practice of silence, the time needed to recover from mental fatigue after a lesson has been shortened by 30 percent”. This, however, is not really an ordinary school.
It is indeed the first biophile school in Italy, that is, aimed at stimulating the innate tendency of children to focus attention on the different forms of life and on everything that reminds them, and in some cases to become emotionally affiliated with them.
In accordance with i principles of biophilic design, on the ceiling there are portholes that project images of the sky in motion, the corridors are fragrant and some internal walls are covered with decorative panels in toasted brown cork which, in addition to muffling the noises, house small vases of aloe, pothos, papyrus and phalanx and contribute to the quality of the indoor air.
Stress-free lunch
The canteen area was also built in such a way that the lunch break is not a stressful and tiring time. Children eat in silence, while videos of natural environments are projected on the walls. After lunch they go out to play outside, thus experiencing that silence is not just the absence of noise, but it also frames and inhabits a meadow, a wood, a stream and is made up of the hum of bees, the chirping of grasshoppers and many other sounds, different for each season.
When the bell marks the end of the interval, the children return to the classroom, they sit on their zafu (the round shaped cushion used in meditations and yoga) and with eyelids lowered they focus their attention on their breath for three minutes, entering into relationship with the inner space, as happens when one experiences the mindfulness, a practice that derives from spiritual traditions of Buddhism and which in turn is at the origin of numerous techniques to combat stress.
«Of course – concludes Barbero – it is clear that not all schools have the necessary conditions to create outdoor teaching and classrooms that stimulate the connection with Nature. However, all of them could carry out active silence programs. They will not be as effective as direct contact with Nature, but they retain their validity regardless of the environment in which the practice of silence is carried out ».
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