Wednesday, July 27, 2011
It’s time to listen at home and school
“Are you even listening to me?” snaps my wife. Regrettably, these words emanate out of her beautiful mouth far too often. Is it because I don’t value the things that she has to say? No! That is absolutely not the answer. There is no other person in my life that I respect and look up to more. I can’t speak for all men, but sometimes I feel that I can multitask when it comes to listening to my wife. I can watch SportsCenter and hear all about her day at the same time. Well, so I thought. Fortunately, I now understand that listening is a skill that needs to be cultured. It’s not a skill that you can pick up overnight. There is a difference between hearing and listening. I need to get better at listening, as a matter of fact, we could all get better at listening. This is in my personal life, but I also need to improve these skills in my professional life. During the school day we are crunched for time, and unfortunately, the amount of time needed to truly listen tends to be sacrificed. Sometimes waiting five seconds on a student response can feel like a minute.
The first step towards improving my listening skills has already started. Just being aware that I need to improve my listening skills is a big step. The book reminds us of the importance of the benefit of really listening. I love O’Reilley’s advice that we should listen someone into existence; encourage a stronger self to emerge or a new talent to flourish (1998). As a teacher, I find that to be a very powerful statement. When you actually invest in listening to your students, you give them value and worth. With that, the student will grow and hopefully achieve above their potential. That awareness alone will guide me to focus on this not only in my professional life, but my wife will hopefully start to see some improvement from me at home. I can’t wait to see what new talents will emerge from her. :-)
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I agree Nate the first step in becoming a better listener is realizing you are not doing a good job at it in the first place. I have conversations all the time where I walk away not knowing what the other person had to say. We get distracted by all are other obligations or to-do lists and don't focus on the here and now. But it is time for a change.
ReplyDeleteIn class we talked about how we can be better listeners to our students. One thing that I love to do is sit and work with students. When I am at their table and we are working together I learn the most about them. They talk freely and we can just have a conversation. It is highlight for me when these moments occur. And I can see how the kids value this time too. They can look at me as someone who cares about whom they are and what they have to say. They feel that they are important.