To Struggle with Silence.

My students are having a Reading Day today and it is quiet.  I mean QUIET.  This is a rare thing in a ninth grade classroom.  And the ironic part is that it is so hard for me, at first, to have the room this way.  It feels too awkward, like there should be background music, and in my head I debate about whether to turn on Pandora through the speakers to break the silence.  But then I think, No.  Often our lives are so filled with noise that we miss our own thoughts. 
We miss just sitting and being still for even a little bit. 

Some of my students have no quiet in their lives at all.  They have crazy home lives, crazy parents, crazy situations, and their lives are an unending blare of noise and activity. 

For some of them, this may be the only peace they get.

So, on this Friday afternoon, before the weekend at home, we are sitting and we are reading and we are quiet.  A few of them have finished and have their head down, and that is ok with me.  There has not been a single complaint and I have not had to ask even one of them to sit still or stop whispering. 

They need this quiet.  We need this quiet.