Silence as a Pedagogical Issue: Heuristic Perspectives

ABSTRACT


Introduction
The Rev. Isaac the Syrian wrote: 'Silence is the mystery of the age to come, and words are the instruments of this world' (Nineviyskiy, 1993). In the 21st century, the promised 'age to come' is now at our door. It can be referred to as the world of noise and chaos, 'an ever-growing talk', and 'a world striving for total expression' (Baudrillard, 1981). According to A. de Saint-Exupery, a person drowns in the depths of noise, because the reality of contemporary man is a constant noise, a media scream (Saint-Exupery, 1943). The student, like many others, plunges into this universal noise -into information; he or she is getting inclined to hear himself or herself rather than others. And in the way of thinking, behaviour, and communication, as Hans-Georg Gadamer said, the young are becoming more and more monological (Vessey & Blauwkamp, 2006).
Monologism is the cause of idle talk, mass copying of someone else's, and striving to null content of dialogue. 'Loss' of dialogue means 'loss' of a person, of the connection with others and self (Korol, 2019;Korol, 2022). An increasingly fast-paced life leads to a certain degree of callousness and alienation from self and others, a phenomenon that has been addressed in some psychological experiments. One study that comes to mind is by Philip Zimbardo, who explores the connection between the time perspective and the degree of altruism in small and large cities: people who are in a constant shortage of time are less inclined to help others than people who are in no hurry. Man ceases to 'hear' others because he does not 'hear' himself (Zimbardo & Boyd, 2008).
In education, the pupil also keeps silent in a different sense -reproduces other people's thoughts, he is silent in the literal and figurative sense: he does not know the answer to the teacher's question or time answers according to a template, a pattern in which there is nothing of his own, thus he doesn't give rise to new meanings and sense. The main meaning, goals and content of education are to convey the multicultural experience of mankind to a 'monocultural' student -are monologic in their sense. Filling the 'blank page' with external, 'foreign' letters means nothing but failing to take into account the student`s own self -their mission, purpose, and personal features -in the process of education.
The monological character of the education system denies, first of all, the independent, creative character of students' knowledge of the world around them, the development of their qualities as a personality-creator, capable of self-study and self-change, and motivation for cognition. It is not accidental that H. Hesse wrote in one of his novels: 'Wisdom cannot be imparted. The wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else' (Hesse, 1951). Wisdom and knowledge are things made up 'by a person themselves', a product created by man that cannot be conveyed as information. In the information new to a person, there is no discovery for him or her, for the discovery is a view of the world with the own eyes, and not with those of others.

A Cross-cultural Perspectives of Silence
In 'speaking' and silence, one can see glimpses of the dialogic nature of the Eastern and Western cultures. Several scholars agree that the topic of silence in the pedagogy of higher education and secondary schooling is most relevant for high-context cultures, e.g. Japan, Korea & China (Korneva, 2007;Gurevich, 2005;Jaworski, 1992;Nakane, 1970). According to Gurevich (2005), 'the Japanese adhere to a traditional culture of silence, and of dispassionate communication with few visible manifestations'. The Japanese are a linguistic group that professes the values of silence and uses silence, as observed by Barnlund (1975), Clancy (1986), Davies and Ikeno (2002), Doi (1974), La Forge (1983), Lebra (1987), Loveday (1982). 'In Japan, silence in day-to-day communications, business meetings and in schooling is more common and is more lasting than in western countries' (Nakane, 1970). A fair number of scholars report that silence is used extensively in the socialisation of Japanese children, starting from an early age, especially in the family setting (Saville-Troike, 1985;Clancy, 1986;Lehtonen & Sajavaara, 1985;Philips, 1972;Scollon & Scollon, 1983).
Also of interest are the comparative analyses of the role and value of silence in the Far Eastern and Western cultures. It has been discovered that similar to the Japanese, other linguistic communities of the Far East show greater tolerance of silence and attach a more positive value to it, by comparison with Western cultures (Basso, 1970;Enninger, 1987;Nwoye, 1985;Scollon, 1985). Nakane (2007) provides the following report on the instructional process at Atabaskan Indian communities: they listen and watch the adults silently, but not by pointing out and taking note of errors, as is typical of Anglo-American children. Indigenous students at the school in the Odawa reservation in Canada were more receptive to an indigenous teacher who allowed 'waiting times' averaging 4, 6 seconds, and less receptive to a non-indigenous teacher whose mean waiting time was only 2.0 seconds (Erickson & Mohatt, 1977). According to some accounts, Asian students are often seen as reserved and silent as learners of English as a foreign language (Kubota, 1999;Young, 1990), in tertiary education (Ballard & Clanchy, 1991;Liu, 2000), and in cross-cultural research (Marriott, 2000;Milner & Quilty, 1996).
What are the determinants of such inclination towards silence?
The analysis of philosophical, linguistic, psychological and pedagogical studies allows us to conclude that a Western-type civilisation is a civilisation of speaking, and an Eastern-type civilisation is a civilisation of silence. The expansion of man's outer limits related to cognition, science, and the struggle with opposites, starting with Aristotle, is the path from chaos to harmony. And this external transformation conventionally symbolises the sign '1'. At the same time, the inner transformation of a person, the absence of external struggle and, as a consequence, the logic of A = B (equality of opposites) symbolises '0' as a kind of pause of silence (Needham et al, 1962;Fromm, 1986). Chuang Tzu said 24 centuries ago that in everything there is both east and west (Grigorieva, 1992). Similarly, the presence of '0' and '1' is the embodiment of Ovidius's famous words (Publius Ovidius Naso known in English as Ovid) that there is no speech without silence, and, conversely, there is no speaking without pauses, which fill the text with volume and meaning.
In her work 'Buddhism and modern thought', philosopher Grigorieva notes that Western thought tradition is grounded in the Unit (e.g. the Greek Monade, or the Christian God as the absolute unit). The fundamental Unit as a reference point assumes a sequential chain of causes and effects, while the Eastern or Buddist thought tradition is grounded in the Naught, the Absolute Naught -all representing the epitomes of indivisibility, holism and completeness of the unmanifested world (Grigorieva, 2015).
The nature of communicative barriers and the inability of a person to hear another person, to take the place of another lies in the plane not so much of rationality (including thinking) but in the sphere of motivation and needs. The words of the psychoanalyst Pearls (1969) seem attractive saying that reality is a continuation of our needs. The methods of silence are aimed at 'straightening out' the reality: 'Only those who understand themselves can treat the myriad things according to their myriad natures' (Hong Zicheng, 2006, No 117). Or we quote the words of the philosopher and theologian Panikkar: 'The spiritual masters of every age agree that only when the waters of our spirit are tranquil can they reflect reality without deforming it' (Panikkar, 2010, p. 78).
If silence in the East there is a practice of comprehending the truth, then the study of the category of 'silence' is a significant theoretical part of the European rational heritage of philosophy. Many prominent Western thinkers addressed the philosophical problem of silence: Kierkegaard (1983), Heidegger (1995), Husserl (1970). A number of the same kind of works like 'Philosophy of Silence', and 'Methodology of Silence' are an attempt of the choir of rational voices of the West to penetrate the mystery of the East, zealously preserved and protected (Stachewich, 2012).
From the point of view of linguistics, depth is always a departure from noise, barriers to communication, and rationality to the deeper layers of the image. Deepening the person to his own sources during the silence is the 'shortest', and therefore, an effective means of communicating the person with himself, with the Other, with the world. In silence, Mandelstam is nostalgic for harmony with the universe, the original unity with the world. In the memorial to silence called 'Silentium' the birth of the word means the appearance of a bridge from the soul to the sky. The great power of the word matures and gains its power in silence (Maslova, 2004). Tsvetaeva believed that a person imprisoned in the silence of the universe falls into a special state, a sort of mystical insight (Author's translation from the original poem's Tsvetaeva, Korosteleva, 2000): The eye can see an invisible distance. The heart can see the invisible connection ... The ear can drink -the most incredible whisper ... ('At the dawn the most temporary blood can be seen ...').

Silence in Pedagogy
Reviewing the scholarship of silence could literally cause one to sink in silence, given the enormous amount of research that examines this topic from the perspectives of philosophy and psychology, even though pedagogy seems to have more room for silence than for speaking. Silence was used extensively in the instructional practice of Pythagoras' school. Under the rules of the school, novices were subjected to five years of 'disciplinary silence' so they could develop the ability to use language effectively, to 'speak in silence', and exercise self-restraint in speech. Silence was seen as an art that enabled careful listening and effective preparation, through the practice of listening, for speaking. In Pythagoras' instructional practice, silence and serenity were a prerequisite to the development of thinking. Silence and serenity made room for reflection and analysis, while noise and empty talk were seen as antagonists to these phenomena of the human spirit.
For Plato, thinking is the talking of the soul with itself, which must occur in silence as a natural medium for reflection. Silence is also prerequisite to effective listening ('listen to me silently'). It would be appropriate in this context to recall the observations of Montessori (2005) who argued that the wholeness of the body, spirit and soul is achieved through movement and silence and that achieving peace of mind in silence would help a person in constructing their reality. Italy's first doctor of medicine proposed several specific methods and devices to be used in 'silence lessons', such as hearing the silence, inviting the child in a whisper to rise and approach the teacher quietly, and focusing the pupil's attention on a single intention or objective; developing the child's sensory capability and creating multiple sensory experiences.
The British researcher Lees (2013) has named several advantages of using silence identified in multiple studies in physiology and neurophysiology. First was the improvement of mental health, as evidenced by the results of clinical trials. Furthermore, after a silent moment children return to instruction with renewed energy, which also has a positive impact on their behaviour. Olearczyk (2010) and Jaworsky (1992) have reviewed the theoretical and practical aspects of teaching by silence. Their main focus, however, is on the emotional, axiological and psychophysiological aspects of silence, such as its disciplining role and its use as a tool for increasing the pupils' attention span and promoting internalisation of the standards and norms of behaviour. As noted by Olearczyk, silence plays a key part in the process of instruction and character building. He observes that some of the most productive uses of silence are to enhance student learning, promote self-development and build willpower and commitment. Olearczyk writes: 'The pedagogy silence is not an alternative to the pedagogy of the spoken word, verbal interaction and persuasion; rather, it acts as a prerequisite and foundation of such pedagogy' (Olearczyk, 2010, p. 9).
Of special interest are the works by Caranfa (2004), Cooper (2012), and the British scholar Lees (2016). Lees suggests that silence can be promoted as a way of democratising schooling practices. 'if no one is speaking no one can dominate'. The English scholar provides the following description of the effect of using three-minute silence breaks in two-hour seminars: The silence breaks not only facilitated student exposure to, and absorption of new knowledge, but also allowed them to have a sense of their physical and mental space … Some were looking out the window, some were taking notes, and others were sitting with their eyes closed, perhaps in meditation (Lees, 2013).
It should be noted, however, that silence in education has acted as a 'foreign matter' in the traditional monological process of relaying information, which, in our view, has been weakening the effect of the 'dietary supplement' of the silence breaks. To resort to a form of allegory, the process of relaying information to the student may be compared to a type of personal style or lifestyle. The lifestyle may be healthy or unhealthy, resulting in rapid ageing or accumulation of disease. Obviously, a healthy lifestyle can do more for health promotion than a dietary supplement. Conversely, no dietary supplement could prevent the negative consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle. Likewise, the one-way transmission through schooling of identical, extrinsic and universal knowledge to different students closes the individual student's pathway to the discovery of personal meanings, goals and one's own self, prevents disclosure and realisation of own potential and capabilities, and limits the space for the creation by the student of their unique product distinct from the products of other students.
The student's product may be external -i.e. taking some material form, such as a hypothesis or a completed work plan -or internal, resulting in the modification or enhancement of the student's personality traits. These include, first and foremost, the student's cognitive, creative and leadership abilities (Khutorskoy, 2003). However, if we were to examine the origins of this 'negative' silence, we would find that they lie in the monological transmission of the human experience from the teacher to the students, which relies on the effort of the teacher to set the goals and ask questions, and leaves the student in the position of a passive recipient being led towards the 'beam of truth'. In sum, the reason lies in the domination of a single truth, the prevalence of one point of view that is deemed 'correct' and that exists in the mind of the teacher. This view is reflected in the works of various researchers with different terms: for example, Freire's concept of 'oppressed' corresponds to the concept of 'monologue', and vice versa, a student who self-actualises in heuristic learning through questioning corresponds to the concept of 'beings for himself' (Freire, 1970).
From the existing scholarship, the author concludes that silence should be a regular event, rather than an ad-hoc occurrence if it is to have a positive effect on instruction. Let us agree with this proposition; indeed, taking dietary supplements regularly may improve the quality of life, but the potency of this effect will still be lower than changing one's lifestyle. Despite multiple references to various techniques and forms of silence in the existing scholarship provides few accounts of its extensive use in the instructional process, or of silence as a coherent method addressing the meanings, goals, content, forms, techniques, and approaches to student assessment.
Very often silence is interpreted literally (lack of knowledge), however, silence is the pause that allows you to look for an answer to an external question and very often in Silence a person can continue to think in words, for example, reflecting on the answer to a question, coming to new knowledge, or can be silent without any thinking, which can also give birth to the new knowledge took place in ancient practices. Heidegger (1995) is recognised as the leading modern philosopher of silence. He believed that silence allows us to comprehend closed areas of knowledge, and the true language is the language of silence. Let us quote the words of Heidegger: 'In which of cases does the language itself become a word like a language? Surprisingly, somewhere where we do not find the right word for what worries us, what we are worried about, what concerns us or emotionally gets us. And then everything that we think about and experience at such moments when the language touches us with its essence, remains untold'.
The words of Hannah Arendt sound in tune with the previous lines. 'Great philosophers almost always stressed that, in addition to written words, there always remains something 'unspeakable', something that they realise when they think, but that for some reason one cannot grasp the word and transfer it to another. Without the realisation that the Inexpressible cannot exist, it seems that any form of metaphysical consciousness, the realisation of being as such, being, existence, meaning, integrity, is not possible. And to live only by the reality of what can be defined by a word; it's like touching the dust of the earth, instead of digging up the earth' (Stachewicz, 2012, p. 575).
Silence means not only the absence of external words, but also of inner speech, and, therefore, of thought. This is a pause, a gap between the semantic positions, between words. A person creates a context near a lacuna to fill it. However, you can fill it only by going beyond the limits, the edges of this gap, having made a 'jump'. For example, the chemist Kekule saw the benzene ring formula in a dream. A dream is a kind of silence, a pause without speech and thought, a jump between wakefulness. The Chinese thought 'enlightenment comes when the thought runs out of itself' has a direct relation to silence. Silence is a 'transition', a 'jump' from one meaning to another. During the 'jump' there is no thought, only after this jump the gap is immediately filled with thought, and, therefore, with speech -internal and external. Silence is always an image, an association, a form and content of a 'gap' between words, going beyond what has been said, a 'slit' in a language through which a new reality is visible. To create a new reality, you need to go beyond it, to be at the edge of the word, thought, and speech. The boundary between the word and silence is the cradle in which new knowledge is born.

Heuristic Basis of Silence
Here is a rare example of a student`s appeal through 'silence' to his self -a system of heuristic training (Khutorskoy, 2003). The purpose of the didactic system is to acquire one's image of a person, to open a person to himself and the world, and to bring him or her to socialise with the world.
The reason for the silence of a student in a school setting is the monologicality of the externally determined, alienated and standardised content of education. The educational monologue causes the student to close off and leads to a loss of the capability to discover, disclose and realise their mission and potential. What is needed to pull the student out of the state of silence is an environment for their self-realisation, the creation by the student of their own product, and for filling the objects of the outside world with own meaning and content. Instead of a purely monological transmission of information, we need to facilitate a dialogue between the student and the world and in doing so we need to reach beyond the forms and methods of instruction, as is the case for many innovative instructional systems, and rise to the level of meanings, goals and content of education. This kind of dialogical engagement of the student with objects of the outside world will be truly heuristic, interactional and distinct from the traditional type of dialogue between the student and the teacher. In this new type of dialogue, the dominant role in asking questions will be fulfilled by the student, not the teacher. Such questioning represents the methodological and instrumental component of the design and implementation of a heuristic, dialogical model of instruction.
By heuristic instruction, we understand the learning activity of the students related to the construction of their own meanings, goals, content, forms and methods of organizing learning Vol. 1, No. 2, June 2022, pp. 12-22 Kоrol, A. D. (Silence as a Pedagogical Issue: Heuristic Perspectives) (Khutorskoy, 2003). Heuristic instruction encourages the student to open up to find their own meanings and goals, to gain motivation and to ask questions. Discovery is not about digesting standardised information that had been pre-selected and adapted by somebody else; it is about connecting to the reality surrounding the student. At the very first stage of the learning process, the student will learn about the objects of reality while creating their own product. And only at the next stage, would the student compare their personal educational product with its cultural-historical analogy in a given area, leading the student to create a generalised educational product. The individual education 52 trajectories of the student is the path of individual self-change and discovery of the self through creation of external educational products in a dialogue between one's own product and its extrinsic cultural-historical analogy.
Such is the methodology of heuristic learning. The dialogical comparison between one's own product and those of others would get the students to address their own selves by answering the question 'Who am I', and to make the discovery using the tools of the different disciplines. Indeed, we can only know ourselves to the extent that we know who we are not. For the student, discovery happens in the space of silence and represents a leap from one meaning to another, by seeing the world through their own eyes, not the eyes of others. It is not accidental, therefore for Khoruzhy (2005) to observe that in silence one may encounter hermeneutics, epistemology and heuristics (Khoruzhy is a writer on isichasm, a religious practice of solitary living in places like the Monastery of Optina practiced by some believers, including some famous Starets's who have said some very wise things). Discovery is possible if the content of learning is open and flexible, and each student is able to create their own learning product distinct from the products of the other students. As an example, let me cite the following exercise designed by first-year students.

Imagine yourself as a word. What sentences would you like to be in, and what kind of meaning would you like to convey? How would you like your meaning to be explained in a dictionary?
The essential aspect of this exercise is pedagogy. The questions will have as many potential answers as there are students, and as many potential learning products, given that each student will have their own understanding and their own idea about their desired role. The task is student-centered, as it has no clear-cut answer. It expects the student to imagine oneself through the prism of an academic subject, and we see this as a perfect opportunity for students to express their own views, deliver results and make a discovery with relevance to the subject.
Here is another example. On Knowledge Day, celebrated on 1 September students were invited to ask adults questions about learning and knowing. The adults were parents, grandparents and teachers. Here are some of the questions that were asked. Is knowledge a question or an answer? Is knowledge a process or a result? What kind of people would use knowledge more often than others? Is it possible to gain knowledge without going to school? Is there really a person who does not know anything? How do you tell a new idea from an old one? What does knowing mean? Why is knowledge better than ignorance?
All of these results suggest that a person is not a clean slate to be filled by the noise of somebody else's writings but the seed of an unknown plant. A necessary ingredient to making the seed grow is silence as an opportunity for the student to discover one's own self, and through this, the outside world.
To dive into silence for the purpose of the birth of the new, it is important to reject external influence. And here, from the point of view of pedagogy, the mystical-religious and philosophical practices of the East are of interest. Let us draw a series of parallels.
In the Russian spiritual practice of Hesychasm, an 'intelligent prayer' is an attempt to unite the rational and transcendental principles: the mind and the heart (Khoruzhy, 2000). In the Orthodox tradition of Hesychasm, the entire hierarchy, or 'ladder' of spiritual ascent lies from repentance (conversion) to apotheosis. And the most important intermediate stages, highlighted by the Tradition, are the following: struggle with passions -hesychia -reduction of the mind to the heart -unceasing prayer dispassion -pure prayer. Elder Joseph the Hesychast (1998) distinguishes three stages of hesychasm: purification, enlightenment and illumination by grace.
The presence of the three stages to the knowledge of truths exists in the spiritual practices of the eastern schools: limitation of passions, strengthening of the spiritual heart, and movement 'upwards'. Thus, the Sufi Way is structured into stages -stops (makamat), and one starts the struggle with the lower, selfishly desiring powers and layers of the psyche, appealing to the flesh and the sensual world (sometimes they use the term nafs, more broadly meaning the soul). Then, with the help of concentration and prayer techniques, one performs 'purification of the heart', forming in the person a stable spiritual Center -the spiritual heart, the Kalb; and finally, one is moving towards higher spiritual states (Khoruzhy, 2000, p. 371).
All the above-mentioned practices of silence include the very first stage of avoiding fuss and noise as an external influence, at the second stage the new knowledge-enlightenment as a dialoguecomparing one's own with another's is born, and reinforcement-generalisation of what has been achieved makes up the third stage. Therefore, we have every reason to draw a conclusion about the heuristic basis of the didactics of silence. This is consistent with the conclusion of Khoruzhy, who proposes to read nontrivial epistemology, hermeneutics and heuristics in the mystical experience of Hesychasm, and the experience itself is considered to be the core of some anthropological strategy, the scenario of self-actualisation of man.
In fact, in didactic heuristics, the pupil is the dominant in the cognition of the new. This dominant is a pupil's question to the outside world. The system of education based on the heuristic dialogue is based on the hermeneutic primacy of the issue. The pupil's question is a technological and methodological tool for designing and implementing a learning system based on dialogue, a criterion for assessing the questioning activity (the pedagogical form of the pupil's response). The profound dialogic nature of the system of heuristic learning is akin to dialogicality in the methodology of Hesychasm, which is 'the element of personality and (God) communication' (Khoruzhy, 2000, p. 291).
The methodology of the heuristic dialogue, in which the pupil's inquiring activity is aimed at cognizing the object, is conditionally designated by 'model questions': 'What?' (What are we studying?), 'How?' (How is this object described in culture?), 'Why?' (Why does not my idea coincide with the cultural-historical analogue in general?)". The triad of methodological groups of questions of heuristic dialogue is consonant with the stages of the student's heuristic activity and reflects the rational stages of the methodology of scientific cognition. The triad begins with the selection of an object from a number of others, requires the description of the properties of the object (the group of questions 'What?'), then -the links between the selected properties (the group of questions 'How?'), and after that -the establishment and explanation of patterns (group of questions 'Why?') (Korol, 2019).
The question is a manifestation of a new one from the depths of silence. Silence is connected with questioning because the one who knows how to be silent knows how to ask. Thus, a system of inquiry-based learning is the basis for a system of silence-based learning. The duration of silence is an extremely interesting aspect. In the European tradition, a person immersed in silence tries to sound it rationally and treat it critically. The eastern tradition is all about it -to remain in silence. Filling the world with its meaning and content, the student reveals themselves as being in a state of 'nonobservation', 'absence' of historical time. Eliot connects the act of discovery with time with a moment not out of time (Williamson, 1998). In 'The Quest for Lost Time' (Proust, 1982) it says 'Time was when I always went to bed early. Sometimes, as soon as I snuffed my candle, my eyes would close before I even had time to think, 'I'm falling asleep.'' Sleep and awakening are two different states, the meta-time and historical time. Completing the 'path to yourself' the student is in the meta-time. The act of self-change of the student is an act of his birth, denying the duration or historicism of time. The sizes of the formation and change of the student in its relationship with previous 'births' -discoveries, form the basis of the meta-time. Discovering himself in the act of self-realisation, a person opens himself to the world. However, the problem -that of the question of the relationship between the duration of silence and the amount of knowledge produced in silencestill remains.
For example, silence allows the student to see the sounds of music inside. Hence the task, which is to draw an image of music or to translate the conversation of two silent people into an image. Here we are talking about coding words into an image -a component of silence as a pause in the context of words. These methods can be attributed to creative methods of teaching silence. In the organisational and activity methods of teaching, silence can be attributed methods in which the student is invited: to define the stages in communication when he wants to remain silent; develop its own code of silence, a method of silence; describe the stages of immersion in silence and justify them.
The Meta-Subject Knowledge Method. As Mitskiewicz (1962) wrote in the famous 'Sir Tadeusz' 'A great idea usually forces the mouth to silence'. But silence creates a great thought/knowledge which is meta-subjective and holistic. The essence of the method is that the student is asked to formulate the very idea in order to be silent. Either the student is asked to answer the interlocutor's question in such a way that the interlocutor is silent. The Prove and Refute Method. It is a rational method of silence in the awareness of integrity and meta-objectivity. One way to get a holistic view of things is to look at them from the two opposite sides. So did Socrates. Unity of proof and refutation is seen as an integral part of the method of heuristic dialogue.

Conclusion
In the conclusion of the article, we note that the ratio of silence and word is the ratio of man and history. 'The history of the world is the sum of what would have been avoidable', as Bertrand Russell noted 1 . From the point of view of Tard, the cause of the intensity of world changes is imitation as a stereotypical repetition by some people of the behavior of others. The French scientist considered the result of a collision (imposition) of circles of imitation emanating from 'creative centers' to be the driving force of social processes (Tarde, 1903). In other words, in the theory of G.Tard, world history is the history of the collision of imitation circles. The more imitations and stereotypes there are in the world, the more collisions in the form of conflicts and wars, which is a marker of the speed of world changes. If each person were a person focused on his inner potential, without imitation of others (which is obviously impossible), then we would have no external history of a person. Thus, the internal history denies the external history based on imitations and stereotypes.
'Human speech is something that could not be,' writes Bibikhin (2007). The foregoing indicates that the word is historical by its nature. It is not surprising that the existing didactics are the didactics of 'speaking'. It is historical to the same degree as it is stereotyped. Transmission, copying of other people's information does not 'deepen' a person, but 'expands' it, thus, expanding the number of collisions of G. Tard`s imitating circles and accelerating the history. Man is associated with silence and depth. Paraphrasing Russell's expression, it can be claimed that world history is the sum of those changes that could occur in a person under certain conditions, but which did not occur. The history of mankind is the sum of unfulfilled travels of people deep into themselves, undiscovered and unrealised opportunities of each person, and internal discoveries that have failed. It is the sum of people who do not know themselves. It is the sum of the undiscovered love of people. In other words, the voices of history are the untouched silent depths of people.
An extremely important aspect of silence is in learning. Although silence is often associated with a negative perception at school: being silent means not knowing, -the experience of ancient practices shows that silence can give birth to a lot of new things. To the student, a silence break is a moment to re-examine their own selves and to know the world around them in doing so. This happens specifically, when students can set own learning goals, choose their own methods of achieving them, and create distinct products in the process of learning. And it's important to note that it is in synthesis with heuristics and questioning that silence acquires a coherent learning system.