Listening can be the hardest thing to do. We have all had the kid in class who answers every question posed but in 100 words when three would do. It can be difficult to listen to some people talk not because of what they say just the pitch of their voice makes your ears hurt. But as a teacher it is really important to listen to every student and make them fell you are listening and their options matter. The reading makes some really good points about how people listen at academic institutions, just enough to have a counter point. I really try not to do this with students but it is very hard most of the time.
Many students don’t have conversations any more, they talk with their thumbs, and as Matt pointed out you lose so much by just reading text. In class they just want to know what is on the test. It reminds of the old T.V. show Dragnet and Sgt. Friday’s saying, "Just the facts, ma'am". It seems some people don’t really want to hear what you have to say. People may ask how your day has been but they don’t really want to listen. It seems that people are so busy these days we rarely sit down and listen to what one other have to say. I am as guilty of this as anyone. There are days when all I want to do is get to the golf course and not talk to anyone for about 4 hours.
A side note-on why kids won’t/aren’t good listeners- they will all be death by the age of 45 with the constant loud music playing in their ears. I am sitting here in the library and I can hear the person five computers behind me music as if it were in my ears. These people simply won’t be able to hear who’s talking to them.
P.S. Future hobby will be squirting kids with my garden hose or another water propelling device.
Okay totally laughed out loud! I can see you as the grumpy old man - my dad wanted to be called "Grumpa" vs Grandpa
ReplyDeleteanyways -random thought I liked the Tom Hanks Dragnet movie where they sang a song about "the copper copper Mr. Crime Stopper" I embarrass my daughter who says I can find a song for everything
It is hard to get to the point sometimes - my husband gets frustrated with me because he is a "pointer" as they say and I am a "painter" and he has had to learn to be patient and sometimes he just looks at me and says "get to the point" if I talk too much - wouldn't it be nice if we could do that to the students? On another side note I know my daughter used to listen to her Ipod that loud when she was mad at me and didn't want to be bothered or listen to me ;) maybe that person was having a bad day and needed to shut out the day
Wow - this should all be called - random thoughts by Jamie -HA!
You see the lack of communication pouring out in the High School but it is steadily creeping into the older ages and the younger ages. It is important that we do not lose sight of the importance of having human to human connections. Technology like we talked about yesterday can add the to the connectivity (phone, email, skype, etc.) but it can also have an extremely subversive effect.
ReplyDeleteInteresting comments and blog. I am continually reminded about a back to school night when my oldest son (now 20) was in his Sophomore year. His speech teacher was very concerned by the effects she was seeing in her speech classroom. She struggled with the simple ablity to get students to write and speak in ways other than text or email language. Now we see that kids even shut out the outside world by plugging in their earbuds. Then they don't have to communicate at all.
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