Is silence Awkward?

It's the first day of senior year of high school. My first class is sociology with Mr. Salituro. As he walks in, he sits on a desk in the back of the room in silence for awhile. No one knows what is going on and every one feels awkward and doesn't know what to do. This also was weird for me and I felt awkward because I'm so used to talking. The only noises you can hear in the room is nervous laughter, because even when were supposed to be silent we can't.  I realize he is trying to make a point. In every other class, for the twelve years i've been attending school this silence has never occurred. Every teacher feels the need to talk at all times and most don't realize they don't give students a chance to take things in. I believe we have been trained to always be talking and this makes silence feel really awkward and uncomfortable. In all my other classes during the day, we always walk into the teacher talking, not wasting a minute of their time during the fifty minute class period. Most teachers never get to hear their students because they never give them a chance to talk. The teachers are always talking and not being silent; so they don't have a chance to listen to their students when they may be missing something important. I feel like silence is pretty awkward for most people; especially students, but I don't think it should be this way. Silence can serve a point, purpose, give us time to reflect, listen to others, and so much more. This was a good experience for every one and it was more meaningful to me than any other class during my day; because when Mr. Salituro was silent it showed a different perspective and it showed he wasn't like all of our other teachers. He told us that he takes time to be silent and listen to his students, unlike most teachers. Being silent and listening to others can be very beneficial and you can learn so much more from being quiet and listening to others than talking all the time. I learned so much more in one day in Mr. Salituro's class than I have in one year of learning Geometry or U.S. History.