Eastern philosophies of education such as Confucianism and Taosim advocate the use of silence in the teacher-pupil tradition of pedagogy. We investigate contemporary classrooms in Korea, and study whether teachers in Korea today incorporate this method implicitly or explicitly in their classrooms. Empirical data in the form of video-taped classroom lessons and the analysis of the videos reveal the learning paradoxes that arise from a rote adherence to constructivism by teachers that are trained within a larger Confucian society.