I recently heard an interesting show on ‘Radio National’ talked about the effect that noise has on the classroom . It talked about how noise distracts students, and in extreme cases, a seemingly minor distraction can change the meaning of the whole lesson.
It gave the example of a children’s story read to a group of young children. A bit of noise distracted one of them from hearing the first few sentences correctly. As a result, what should have been a beautiful story about a ‘bleating sheep’ turned into a horror story about a ‘bleeding sheep’.
How many times do we allow noise change our own perception of life from wonderful stories into nightmares? Not very often? Think again.
We’re not talking about ‘auditive noise’; rather, about ‘mindfulness noise’.
‘Mindfulness noise’ is the term I use to describe the endless stream of thoughts that create worry, anxiety, and inaction in our lives. It is the continuous bouncing of worries that often happens inside of our minds. This noise distracts us from the word around us, drowning any lesson or story that could improve the quality of our life.
In the Radio National show they also talked about successful use of High Fidelity equipment to accentuate the sounds that are difficult to hear, and to distribute the voice of the teacher evenly across the classroom.
Are you even aware of the noise that happens inside your mind every day? What technology could we use to achieve a better signal-to-noise ratio inside our minds?
If you find something that works, don’t forget to share it with the rest of us — we all could use some peave and quiet in the living room of our minds.
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