Encounters with silence : toward a pedagogics of silence in the education of adults

Educational theory, if distanced from experience, positions silence as a problem rather than as a site of possibility. This thesis presents and analyses experiences of silence in the lives of a composer, a novelist, a meditation teacher, an Orthodox priest, a high school teacher, an Anglican priest, an actor, a grief counsellor, and a university lecturer. It draws upon discourses of philosophy, theology, language, the arts and the environment. By focussing on silence as experience, it suggests new ways of enriching pedagogical practice.