As a student myself and later as a 5th grade teacher and college professor, I have been intrigued by the power of simply speaking out. I have something of an Anglo-Saxon, British background where it is not cool to yak on and on. The strong silent man who doesn’t need to speak is the model.
I saw a scene in a Rambo movie. Rambo is male and then some. The bad guys had him tied to a metal box spring and were sending nasty jolts of electricity through him. He writhed in pain. A beautiful Vietnamese woman, complete with sheath dress split up to her lovely thigh, burst into their lair, spraying death accurately around the room from her machine gun held in one hand. With the other, she cut the hero loose and the two bolted for the jungle. They ran swiftly and cleverly outdistanced and outthought their nasty but hapless enemies. Finally, in a sunlit clearing only they knew about, they drew up to catch their breath. Rambo fixes her with a masculine and handsome eye and manages to grunt out, “What you did back there…thanks.”
I feared for the life of their relationship. I hoped he learned to talk, to express gratitude more completely and more memorably. Speaking out helps.
In class, in families, at work, saying something, maybe with a little twist to it to be more complete, more imaginative, more accurate can be a big help. Somewhere Guy de Maupassant, a French author, said that any difficulty can be borne if a story can be told about it. In today’s word, difficulties can be lightened, lives and methods can be improved, memories made sharp, joy can visit if someone says something.
I have urged my students to speak out in class but I have not been very successful at getting the more quiet ones to speak out. I am not sure why they can’t see the value of their contributions. I have often had the experience of asking for comments or questions or criticisms or reactions and had silence, only silence, in response. Then, I will look at my roll and pick a student and speak that person’s name and ask what that person thinks, only to hear a lovely, valuable, brilliant comment by the person I selected. I have never attacked or screamed at the student but I can’t figure out why they didn’t say their great statement without being targeted. I can’t stop wondering what my whole class is missing when the owners of the other minds present fail to make their contributions.
