Went out more than a bit late this Sunday morning. The sun was
already nestling among the budding branches. I am always amazed at the
amazing things, the new things, the astonishing things, the touching
things I see and hear walking the streets day after day, month after
month, year after year when I "listen." Today it was a fallen pine cone
forlonly lying in the middle of the street, a lone echineacha scouting the
way for the others in the bed, a pile of grass clippings heaped on a curb,
the rivulets of collected dew on the car window in my driveway, the
metalic cadence of a woodpecker high above me rapidly drumming on a power
generator, a squirrel jumping from branch to branch. Each seemed so
unimportant, so trivial. And yet, by the end of my walk they all had a
way of adding up to a magnificent experience. But, if I was not open to
these things, if I was not listening with my eyes and ears and soul, I
would have missed something grand. I would have been cut off from all
this around me--and in me.
Listening. That's a very good word for my dictionary of teaching.
There is so much power in listening, much more than in talking.
So many of us think that the greatest power we as teachers have is our
abilty to talk and transmit. It's not, you know.
When we talk, we talk about information; we talk about ourselves;
we focus on our importance.
When so many of us say we are listening, we really aren't. We're
thinking about how to reply. I once was very good at that. When we are
convinced the students have no viable voice, that they are too young or
inexperienced or lack the education to be heard, we're convinced we're
right and they are wrong, we hear with a "be reasonable, agree with me"
attitude that plugs our ears. We don't want their opinion or even their
question. We want submission, obdience, and a cloning in our image. It's
a conscious or unconscious form of arrogance.
But, when we truly listen we value others. That is why the truly
memorable teacher is a good listener.
No, the greatest power of influence a teacher has, the greatest
gift a teacher can offer a student is the ability and willingness to
listen. The best communication skill we as teachers can have is to listen
four or five times more than we speak. Listening works wonders.
Listening says to eveyrone that we are less concerned about who is right
then about what is right and doing the right thing. Listening says that a
student can have something to say, be a resource of ideas, a repository of
principles, a fount of different perspectives and insight. When we
listen, we try to understand, to see things and people differently. When
we listen we close our autobiography and genuinely try to understand their
biography, maybe lose our arrogance and find some humility in the process.
Real listening It says to a student, "you aren't in my way. You are the
reason I'm here." Sincere listening shows respect; it gains trust; it
builds relationships. Listening to a student lets a student feel that you
are intent on what he or she has to say, that what he or she has to say is
not insignificant, that you value him or her as a person, that you have
all the time in the world for him or her. Students yearn to be heard, to
be understood. They want and have to be able to explain themselves.
Listening overcomes the distance of strangers. It is an important
way to overcome distance, to take our "me" and their "you" to reach and
touch to form a "we."
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier [log in to unmask]
Department of History http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698 /~\ /\ /\
912-333-5947 /^\ / \ / /~\ \ /~\__/\
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-_~ / "If you want to climb mountains, \ /^\
_ _ / don't practice on mole hills" - \____
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