Rule of Awkward Silence

Awkward silence is an effective tool in education. In business, the strategy is often referred to as the ‘Rule of Awkward Silence’ however, in education, we simply call it wait time. As a rule, business people are taught to not answer questions presented until pausing for 10 seconds to gather thoughts. Many times, that 10 seconds of dead air can feel like an eternity and it makes people really uncomfortable. This strategy is employed by some very successful companies such as Apple, Tesla, and Amazon to name a few. Though they use the strategy, they certainly didn’t discover it, though it may have been used on them in grade school. Teachers however, have used wait time for as long as there have been lessons. The wait time creates the awkward silence and many educators are quite comfortable with the idea.

Now the 10 second rule is a general rule of thumb. A teacher will ask a question of the students (not an individual student, but the whole class). Once the question is asked, the teacher will call on a random student and wait for the answer. Many young teachers forget this very valuable part of the lesson. The wait time allows the student to process the question, though it feels very awkward for those around them. Once 10 seconds is past, the teacher will call for the answer. If the student does not know, then another student may be called upon to move the lesson along. When done correctly, the silence is deafening. 

In education, we also utilized the ‘Stop and Count to 10’ strategy when helping students work through conflict. Whether we are talking about actions or just words, we ask students to stop and count to 10 before taking the next step. Oftentimes, it clears the mind, so a better decision can be made. With that in mind, I don’t believe it is awkward at all. It is a valid and important part of our communication process. Just think how great things would be if we could pull back some things we have said, or maybe never said it all. Embrace the awkward silence and always pause before you speak or act. Everything else will take care of itself.

Until next time...