“I found myself in a situation where I was completely overwhelmed by the children (...) I remember a little girl who came to see me at the end of a morning and she said to me, ‘But, sir, it's so noisy. It's giving me a headache.’ (...) So that really struck me and I thought, ‘Okay. There's a number of students who can work in good conditions—if the classroom is quiet. So it's not just an old-fashioned thing to say I want quiet in my classroom, but it's also something that children need—for a certain number of children, they need to be in a calm environment.’ Now I'm quite strict in this regard. There are activities where the children can move around the room. That's fine because some children need to move, go to the bathroom. Moving around the classroom is completely allowed, as far as I'm concerned. Speaking in a low voice during certain activities is also completely allowed. But there are times when there's complete silence. At those times, absolutely no one is allowed to speak.”
“When I'm teaching Math, I can see that some children would rather do anything but Math. They want to escape from it. With them, I take more time, so the others really need to be respectful. We talk about it (...) 'This is why I shouldn't make noise—to respect my classmate who learns differently, whose learning style is different.' I tell them, 'Yes, you're not all the same, and your learning styles aren't the same. That's why we have this rule.'"