Unhappy Students, Quiet Students:
Explorations in Pedagogies of Quiet
The World Happiness report hit the news recently, and the U.S. media quickly reported on the country’s ratings slip. The United States dropped from the Top 20 due to declines in youth happiness. “The U.S. fell eight places in the overall happiness rankings to 23rd, but when only the under-30s were asked the world’s richest nation ranked 62nd — behind Guatemala, Saudia Arabia, and Bulgaria.”
When I read these reports, I immediately thought of my students, especially my quiet ones. I know that their mental health is connected to their in-class engagement. In my book, Pedagogies of Quiet: Silence and Social Justice in the Classroom, 56% of students who do not feel comfortable talking in class reported that anxiety and depression are key contributors to their classroom silence. The data is limited in its scope, representing around 700 community college students in the Midwest, but the patterns are useful for us to think about how to engage students in our classrooms.
I recently asked a class of mine what they thought about this news about the decline in youth happiness. They agreed, and while many pundits are (rightfully) focusing on social media, it’s not just that. They talked — and this was not a boisterous conversation — about student loans and housing costs and wondered when they could ever afford to move out of their parent's houses. They talked about the stress of having to work full-time while in college, how that impacted their sleep, and how that, in turn, impacted their mental health. Sure, too, they are worried about the existential stuff: climate crisis, war, and threats to democracy and bodily autonomy. But mostly, it’s the practical stuff that’s on their minds. As noted in The Guardian, “The report does not reveal the causes of the changes, but they come amid increasing concern at the impact of rising social media use, income inequalities, the housing crisis, and fears about war and climate change on the happiness of children and young people.” My students concur with this assessment.
One fix that Vivek Murthy, the United States Surgeon General, suggests is to improve “real-life social connections,” and one place to do this is in the classroom.
In my study, students were asked whether and why they were (or were not) comfortable talking in class. 83% of the students who reported that they were comfortable talking in class followed that up by saying that their teachers or peers could quickly dismantle that comfort. Regarding teachers,
In other words, we teachers want students to talk but sometimes respond to their participation in ways that are (unintentionally) silencing.
On the other hand, many students talked about how their classmates made them feel uncomfortable, and thus, they preferred to stay quiet. They report being worried about being judged by their peers.
What do these dynamics have to do with youth (un)happiness?
Well, trust builds happiness, while distrust erodes happiness. Finland and Denmark, countries that consistently land at the top of the happiness index, share high levels of social trust. Solidarity — built as it is by access to needed resources like child care, education, and health care — undergirds their mental health.
In my research, I saw a lack of trust among students in the classroom, which can be both exacerbated by their mental health and an outcome of it. Regardless, this points us toward a pedagogy that aims to build trust among our students.
Pedagogies of Quiet is one such practice that leans into and creates shared silences for two primary purposes (though there are more to be found in the book!):
One: To illustrate to quiet students that they are valued and to ensure that being quiet is not seen as a hindrance to their learning but instead is a useful learning tool.
Two: To use quiet to create space for trust-building, recognizing that building trust, connection, and care requires time and space; shared silences are a tool for creating that space and building toward community and belonging.
In the book, I write:
Forcing students to talk when they don’t feel like it will not improve their happiness, trust, or sense of belonging. We can instead welcome the quiet. Will this alone solve our students' mental health crises? No. But it’s crucial that we adapt our teaching praxis to reach them where they are and recognize their mental health's impact on their engagement, especially their classroom participation. Quiet pedagogies encourage teachers to think broadly about classroom participation and include rather than exclude quiet space, quiet time, and quiet students.
Interested in exploring these ideas further? Check out the book!
