Interruptions & Disruptions

Interruptions and Disruptions

I am thinking as my thoughts are interrupted by constant talking—a monologue of how to teach that never stops—about how my students value or devalue the noise spaces in my classroom.  I am thinking particularly of a student last year who always wanted the classroom door shut during a test because even one student casually walking down the hall would distract her from her task.  My claustrophobia had always demanded that the classroom door remain open and it took me a while to get over that closed-in feeling.  I have other students who ask to use earbuds or headphones during writing and reading assignments.  I have always said no because I think they need to have some time without their thinking disrupted by an outside source.  Nicholas Carr in his book The Shallows argues that prisoners in Abu Grahib were subjected to constant loud music and noise to disrupt their thinking.  For me, Carr validated my idea that noise is a disruption.

I open every creative writing class with a 15-mimute freewrite and I play music—piano solos and such—while they are writing.  This has been so much of my routine for so many years that I often don’t hear the music.  But I’m wondering if that music disturbed the girl who had to shut the door to take a test.  And what does that do for the kids that don’t like music or don’t like my choice of music?  If I let myself worry too much about this I will never do anything in my classroom because I will overthink it all­­­.  But I do need to be mindful of others.  I am wondering about how to balance that out so that all my students are accommodated.    

I could let this lead to other areas as well, such as group work, class response time, requiring blogs and other social media participation.  But I am going to stay with the noise thing for now because that’s brought on this post.  What causes some of us to need noise and some of us to not need noise?  For instance, I was in a space where one person started to talk and continued to talk until it became a kind of white noise that drove me nuts.  It interrupted my thinking to the point that I had to leave the room.  I was not listening to what was being said—can’t remember the specifics at all, but do remember the constant monotone that droned on and on and on.   

So why can’t I shut out the other noises?   Is it because I want to hear everything around me? Or is it that I am secretly searching for a distraction so I won't have to go to the dreaded writing task and attend to matters such as actually finishing a piece of writing?  I think it's both--but mostly a frustration with my writing--not liking the messy first drafts and not liking what I know is a long and arduous road to the finished product.  It's that old thing about as long as I don't start the project it is still that perfect dream.