The simple truth is, if there were no students, we wouldn't be here. Talk less and listen more. Similarly, teachers need to talk a little less, and listen a little more. Then he'd wait. And then we talked.
Ideas take time.
Sometimes you have to listen for them. Back in the paper factory, after they had moved me over to the staple machine, crazy Al, the floor sweeper, asked me where the moon was. Possessed by some errant gene, Al swept the same patch of factory floor hour after hour, until the foreman moved him. He also had killer halitosis. So when he approached me one lunch hour before I'd left my machine, I was concerned.