Park of Silence

”Here you are,” the Hemulen said. “Just remember that this is not a pleasure-ground, it’s the Park of Silence.” The kiddies silently threw themselves into the enchantment they had helped to build. […]

Outside all was silent. He could hear nothing except the nearest brook and the night wind.

Suddenly the Hemulen felt anxious. He sat up, listening hard. Not a sound.

Perhaps [the kiddies] they don’t have any fun at all, he thought. Perhaps they’re not able to have any fun without shouting their heads off… Perhaps they’ve gone home? […] No, they hadn’t gone home. All the park was rustling and seething with a secret and happy life. He could hear a splash, a giggle, faint thuds and thumps, padding feet everywhere. They were enjoying themselves.

(The Hemulen Who Loved Silence, [italics in original] Jansson, [1962]2018, p. 120-1)

The Hemulen is worried whether there is such a thing as kiddies having ‘fun without shouting one’s head off’, whilst becoming-teacher does not seem the least bit worried that things need to be loud to be fun. Instead, when becoming-teacher encounters a fleeting silence in the startup of an art class, silence is seized and secured through the simple phrase “Some have already gotten into a head start, how nice!”(T, p. 4) before children are let go to continue their work. Refraining from saying anything further at this moment is the minor yet decisive act that maintains an already begun silence. This intuitive move comes to enable the commencement of an art class that echoes the action-filled world created in Hemulen’s ‘Park of Silence’.

Still, the question is, is there such a thing as ‘silence’? John Cage, musician and philosopher, says ‘no’ – “[i]n fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot” (Cage, 1973, p. 8). In the absence of shouting, Hemulen begins hearing sounds: ‘a splash, a giggle, faint thuds and thumps, padding feet everywhere’. In the art class, likewise, there is also an entire ecology of subdued sounds emerging in the absence of words. What becoming-teacher’s single sentence secures is thus not so much ‘silence’ as a voicelessness (more about the impossibility of silence, see mosaic Themes on a Silence). On closer inspection, a myriad of sounds come forth as effects of activities – perhaps even symptoms of ‘kiddies enjoying themselves’.

A parallel ecosystem of interactional modalities that thrive in voicelessness emerges from notes filled with scribbles about bodies doing things, although not saying things. So instead of evaluating (school) sounds, or for that matter premiere ‘silence’ as something intrinsically desirable[1] (cf. Schafer, 1973; [1977]1994), this mosaic takes an interest in what sounds emerge in voicelessness and how non-verbal interaction works. Beginning in the moment becoming-teacher encounters the unforeseen ‘voicelessness’ this mosaic asks, ‘how does the encounter with voicelessness unfold and with what effects’?

Voicelessness and Relational Architecting

“Some have already gotten into a head start, how nice!” (T, p. 4), becoming-teacher has been reported saying. The seemingly trivial decision made on the go translates a class’s ‘head start’into a lesson cue.Children’s actions arein so doing legitimized, but the comment also facilitates voicelessness. Put differently, ‘voicelessness’ continues thanks to becoming-teacher not insisting on a joint assembly, not asking children to pause their work, and not giving verbal instructions. Instead, becoming-teacher publicly affirms children’s already begun work as the formal cue for art class having begun. Abstaining from further verbal production thus generates a communicative interstice where other forms of interactional becomings can proliferate.  

Forty-three minutes will pass without becoming-teacher addressing the entire class once. Only a couple of whispers can be detected in the otherwise voiceless duration. Yet, pages are filled with notations about bodies entering ever-changing configurations. Voicelessness is consequently not the absence of sound and certainly not the absence of action, but an interactionally fertile soil where corporeally and materially informed alternatives develop that keep communication thriving.

Communication

There are twelve children seated inside the classroom to do art and two more outside in the corridor. To examine howvoicelessness is sustained and what processes becoming-teacher is involved in that supports its survival, we will take a look at the unfolding present.

Voicelessness necessitates that becoming-teacher walks around helping children to take out relevant art materials, a proactive work that prevents children from having to ask what to do. Voicelessness necessitates that becoming-teacher distributes instructions on a projected screen, as opposed to telling them what to do. Voicelessness necessitates that becoming-teacher projects ‘time left’ through digital numbers and through an hourglass as visual reminders, instead of verbally reminding them about time. Voicelessness necessitates that becoming-teacher walks away to close a door in a corridor to keep talk from other children intruding their sonic space, instead of having other voices intrude on voicelessness. Voicelessness necessitates that becoming-teacher when moving from one child to the next bids farewell with a hand gesture, instead of saying something. Voicelessness necessitates that becoming-teacher keeps rewriting updated instructions on the projected screen, instead of explaining changed conditions. Voicelessness also demands that becoming-teacher nods in reply to a child, instead of answering verbally. And lastly, voicelessness necessitates that becoming-teacher stands and waits, looking at the group when finishing their tidying, instead of asking them to hurry up.

To maintain the survival of voicelessness, becoming-teacher thereby utilizes physical communication by relocating communicative production from mouth to the extended body and making transient material alliances with projectors, laptops, and doors. The transition between communicative modes is the breaking of a spell when becoming-teacher forty-three minutes into voicelessness “stands and waits, looks over the class calmly, nods to someone’s question” before officially breaking voicelessness with the exclamation “Well done you guys!” (T, p. 5). Voicelessness is therefore not to be confused with passiveness; voicelessness requires intense communication to sustain its survival. It is not enough to speak one’s presence; voicelessness requires ‘doing teacher’.

Physical Proximity

In Jansson’s ‘Park of Silence’ ([1962]2018) other sounds emerge thanks to silence. This goes for art class voicelessness as well, for after all, art class voicelessness is never soundless. A notation at 10.10 reads:

Children are working, a food cart is heard rolling by, pencils are selected and placed on a desk, the scratch from coloring is faintly heard. (T, p. 4)

Most activities during the lesson make sounds, like ‘moving and climbing a chair’, ‘opening a bag’, ‘fetching keys from a desk’, or ‘walking around in the room’. The more subdued the sound is, the closer and quieter bodies must become to hear them. Voicelessness becomes an ambience to feed so that it can be explored.   

Amid the subtle sounds that keep returning during art class there is the sound of coloring-pencil and becoming-teacher-sandal-swooshing (to experience the sound go to mosaic Coloring-Pencil Sound). Children invest in gentle coloring-pencil figurations through diligent work and quietness, perhaps for the sake of the returning walk-gaze-sandal-swoosh visits becoming-teacher keeps doing. Visits billow rhythmically as a form of voicelessness refrains; the refrain, an act that “creates order in chaos, or support in uncertainty” (Moxnes & Osgood, 2019, p. 5). Reciprocity in activities producing such subtle sounds become a joint production that mobilizes a voicelessness territory, that is, territory taken as “an act that affects milieus and rhythms, that "territorializes" them” by borrowing from all milieus (Deleuze & Guattari, [1980]1987 p. 314). Said differently, the enactment of voicelessness refrains where a becoming-teacher comes to stand nearby observing the child at work without a word creates a “sense of purpose” (Buchanan, 2021, p. 96). Voicelessness refrains thereby open onto unknown possibilities, and it could take nothing more than a spoken word and the magic of soft swooshes and becoming-teacher presentness would vanish (more about ‘refrains’ and ‘territorialization’ in mosaic Quizzing).

The ecology of sounds conceivable through voicelessness becomes part of arts class territoriality with a range that moves beyond the physicality of walls. Even in the corridor where two more children sit working, the same art class voicelessness and muted sound of sandal-swoosh and coloring-pencil are enacted. Whether it is children’s voicelessness that attracts becoming-teacher come look at their work or the frequent visits that keep bodies in the corridor wordless, is impossible to say; either way, voicelessness promises physical proximity in exchange for verbal communication at a distance.  

Sonic Heterogeneity

Although territorialization through sound affect demands collective efforts, there is still room for sonic heterogeneity during art class.

Children listen to music in their headphones, some are working with their computers. One child is miming lyrics silently whilst coloring in synchronization with the music. (T, p. 4)

Headphone-children enter a different aural milieu when listening to music. One child is caught by the well-known lyrics of a song and begins singing. But even then, in the singing of a song, the child complies with voicelessness by singing silently and miming the lyrics and thereby never leaving voicelessness territory.

By honoring both the sonic ‘agreement’ of voicelessness and the desire to sing by miming, the child can be proposed as transcoding between headphone-milieu and art class-milieu; that is to say, the child consolidates the codes from two different milieus – singing along with the music in the headphones, and the voicelessness of art class – and in so doing creates a new mixture that consists of silent miming(more about ‘transcoding’ in mosaic Quizzing). Thus, layered milieus[2] with different affectivities show how voicelessness affirms sonic heterogeneity and the freedom to create difference. What may be collectively formed thereby still provides freedom for creative difference where overlapping milieus can be brought into rhythm. The small gesture of miming therefore has a decisive bearing on sustaining the survival of voicelessness, but it must also be recognized as an ethico-political event where sound participates in the formation of limits. Massumi proposes that

[t]endencies are oriented, but open-ended. An in-situation, on-the-fly modulation can be complexly co-inflected by any number of bodies, so that the integral of the differences in play that is what all those involved become in differential attunement to the same event will always be an irreducibly collective product. It is a collective self-structuring. This is a politics beyond self-interest, but not in any ‘general’ interest. It is in the interest of the collectively unfolding event. ([italics in original] Massumi, 2015, p. 97)

There is thus a politics to the voicelessness that offers freedom, but this freedom is neither individual (Massumi, 2015), given, nor limitless. Instead, bodies free themselves by creating sonic (headphones-) difference in the interest of an art class voicelessness event. However, while some bodies thrive during voicelessness, there might also be bodies that experience ‘silent’ classrooms as ‘horrible’[3] (Wenham, 2019) and/or become limited as their preferred means of communication become barred.      

Accordingly, sonic heterogeneity affects communicative strategies and can be observed as utterly collective. As headphones-child notices that becoming-teacher is moving closer, an earmuff is lifted away from the ear to signal listening and then nodding in wordless reply to a silent question gestured by becoming-teacher in the direction of the drawing. Later, as the lesson is coming to an end, a classmate notices that the friend in headphones has lost track of time and therefore walks over and points towards the instruction on the screen, momentarily breaking the agreement when saying Look! which renders an inquisitive look in response from the child with headphones. The classmate now points a finger in the direction of the written instruction as an explanation to the implicit question. Classmates and becoming-teacher in this way continuously form transient passages between layered milieus that support the survival of voicelessness.

Heightened Sensing  

Interactional diversity in voicelessness – besides enabling an array of corporeal becomings – seems to heighten a body’s senses. Without words steering the steps through the classroom, minor movements and sounds do. Becoming-teacher’s hearing and sight seem to, if not intensify, at least re-focus. Insignificant activities and their ensuing sounds are registered as affecting becoming-teacher. Like when becoming-teacher notices a child’s pencil having gone blunt:

No one speaks. Children are coloring. Scha-scha-scha, scha-scha-scha, scha-scha-scha-scha. Becoming-teacher is meandering between desks. Swosh. Swosh. Swosh. Coloring sound changes. Skuiiiiich-skuiiich-skuiiich. Becoming-teacher goes to a table in the front of the classroom, fetches a coloring pencil, walks over to the skuiiich-maker and hands a new pencil. (T, p. 4) 

Stillness makes barely registerable changes in movement and sound detectable. A coloring pencil’s soft brushing suddenly changes into the harsh and squeaky scratching of wood on paper. Becoming-teacher acts upon sound-affect by grabbing a sharpened pencil, walking over to the child, and offering a new pencil in the exact right nuance to the surprised child that now realizes what becoming-teacher has noticed from afar.

Different rationales for being noticed unfold when attention becomes based on parameters not available in wordy and animated settings. Perhaps an effect of voicelessness might be that there is a shift in the rationales for what bodies receive attention when minor gestures and diligence are enough to be noticed. It no longer takes asking for help or misbehaving to catch a teacher’s attention. Or is it perhaps the other way around, voicelessness is possible because children are affirmed through a range of different modes of expression. Or perhaps there is no either/or but rather an irreducible reciprocity.   

Observations about matters of vicinity accordingly involve a perplexing relation; the physical proximity of becoming-teacher is on the one hand what seems to motor voicelessness, but the means to achieve said proximity is through sight and hearing – or what Landahl in discussing the “relationship between the senses, power and educational change” speaks of as ‘senses of distance’ (2019, p. 194[4]). Perhaps ‘senses of distance’ and desiring ‘proximity’ ought not be gathered as paradoxical, but complementary. Or so Landahl seems to suggest when writing that “[t]he unifying feature […] of hearing and sight is that they are senses of distance. In contrast to touch, smell and taste they do not need physical proximity to work”. Landahl then continues to explain that said senses “might equally well be described as capable of bringing about a connection, or even community, across distances” (2019, pp. 203, 204). In short, ‘senses of distance’ become heightened in voicelessness and thus a precondition for the sustenance of community during non-verbal interaction.      

Therefore, regardless of how senses attune in keeping with aural changes, the effect of being handed a sharpened pencil is that the sound of coloring-pencil is rescued as child-hand can continue coloring.  

Nexus

In Hemulen’s ‘Park of Silence’ “kiddies silently threw themselves into the enchantment they had helped to build” (Jansson, [1962]2018, p. 120), much like children silently throw themselves into voicelessness during art class. Or is it perhaps becoming-teacher throwing themselves into the enchantment children have helped build through their ‘head start’? Searching for an exact point in time, or for that matter looking for a ‘who’ that starts things, are pursuits based on erroneous ontological assumptions; voicelessness territorializes through sandal-swoosh and coloring-pencil refrains. The territorial assemblage, in other words the voicelessness of art class, is a collective event (more about ‘event’ in mosaic Coloring-Pencil Sound).   

Were we to rewind arts class, voicelessness has no single point of departure, no one cause; rather, voicelessness is the effect of entwined circumstances, such as playing soccer before art class, where the collaboration between the class and becoming-teacher as their (requested) referee can be seen as an investment in relational work; the exhaustion of the human body upon entering the classroom to do arts while catching one’s breath; the morning assembly and the outline for the day where becoming-teacher tells the class about upcoming classes. Voicelessness even seems to draw on the week before when the art project was first introduced and the then thorough instructions about the assignment which now enables the class to delve into work and get ‘a head start’. Perhaps voicelessness even connects to children’s prior experience of voicelessness and teachers’ appraisal of it.Or perhaps voicelessness “produces fear, perplexity, anxiety, excitement, blame […], prompts diagnoses” even[5] (MacLure, et al., 2010, p. 493), in situations where voicelessness becomes inexplicable.

Although the mosaic offers a fragmental voicelessness map, the present always keeps unfolding in the form of a myriad of irreproducible singularities[6]. So were we to fast-forward our proposed rewinding, voicelessness could never re-playin the same fashion. The debunked ‘when’ and ‘who’ ought therefore to be exchanged into questions like ‘how’ and with what ‘effect(s)’. Let me therefore offer the following as one of many answers to ‘how the encounter with voicelessness unfolds and the mapped effects of said encounter’: One effect of voicelessness is that the rationales for how bodies attract attention change. Bodies that may not be as easily noticed in noisy and busy spaces, or bodies that might not prefer attracting attention in talkative milieus through hand raising, might find opportunities in voicelessness as the diligence of coloring-pencil sound becomes the attractor for becoming-teacher visits.  

Also, visits themselves are another effect of voicelessness characterized by physical proximity and a changed sound ecology. Or perhaps physical proximity is the nurturer of voicelessness? It seems as if emerging sounds might be symptoms not only of ‘kiddies enjoying themselves’ but becoming-teacher enjoying themselves.

Epilogue

Art class is over. I follow becoming-teacher into the neighboring classroom where becoming-teacher is about to start a second arts class. Same assignment, same materials, new class. I come to a halt. Seven children and three adults. Is it possible that voicelessness also is an effect of having seven children singled out from the previous art class assemblage? For more about the second art class, see mosaic When Outside Becomes Inside: Becoming-teacher and the Event ‘to Classroom’.

References

Buchanan, I. (2021). Assemblage theory and method: An introduction and guide. Bloomsbury Academic.

Cage, J. (1973). Silence: lectures and writings. Wesleyan University Press.

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. ([1980]1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press.

Jansson, T. ([1962]2018). Tales from Moominvalley. Sort of Books.

Landahl, J. (2019). Learning to listen and look: the shift from the monitorial system of education to teacher-led lessons. The Senses and Society, 14(2), 194-206.

MacLure, M., Holmes, R., Jones, L., & MacRae, C. (2010). Silence as resistance to analysis: Or, on not opening one’s mouth properly. Qualitative Inquiry, 16(6), 492-500.

Massumi, B. (2015). Politics of affect. Polity.

Moxnes, A., & Osgood, J. (2019). Storying diffractive pedagogy: Reconfiguring groupwork in early childhood teacher education. Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology, 10,1–13.

Schafer, R. M., & Schafer, R. M. (Eds.). (1973). The music of the environment (Vol. 1, pp. 3-35). Universal Edition.

Schafer, R.M. (1994[1977]). The soundscape: our sonic environment and the tuning of the world. Destiny Books.

Verstraete, P., & Hoegaerts, J. (2017). Educational soundscapes: tuning in to sounds and silences in the history of education. Paedagogica Historica, 53(5), 491-497.

Wenham, L. (2019). 'It's horrible. And the class is too silent'-A silent classroom environment can lead to a paralysing fear of being put on the spot, called-out, shown up, shamed or humiliated. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (JCEPS), 17(1).