A defeaning silence

I should let myself get bored so that I can be creative.  We teachers often want to fill our teaching timetables with lots of productive things that keep the children 'learning', all the time.  Or simply busy work, to make us feel better about running out of productive things to do. 

I now believe that children will learn at a deeper level if they’re given challenging problems and the space to knuckle it out, to be frustrated.  A lot of the time (not every time), I look at children struggling and give them some kind of a clue, big or small, therefore taking away their opportunity to do something mentally challenging, some real, deep learning.  It’s my insecurities that make me do this: that giving them a chance to think silence can be deafening.