"We ought to be doing this every morning instead of saying the pledge of allegiance. We should be pledging allegiance to listen to each other so everybody feels heard and can get on with their school day in peace."
So said a 16 year old student in one of my Listening workshops in his school the other day. He and another student had just given each other a minute of listening to the other without interrupting, giving advice or telling their own story. They were feeling refreshed, calm, respected. He and his classmates were taking this class with me as part of a special pull-out program for young people with leadership potential to learn some leadership skills. I was teaching them one of them.
This morning, I was teaching a class of middle schoolers. Again, they were 25 students in a leadership class in a school of 1000. I asked, "How many of you have been taught public speaking?" They all raised their hands.
"How many of you have been taught how to write?" Again, all hands went up.
"How many of you have ever been taught how to listen better?" One hand went up.
"What was your training?" I asked.
"Well, it wasn't really a training, just a test to see how well I listened."
"So you were tested but not taught how?"
"Right."
In an elementary school a week ago, a red-headed kindergartner who had just finished "reflecting back" his classmates' tale of a tiff on the playground, hit his forehead with his hand exclaiming, "This is really important!! Am I going to learn more about this in first grade?"
I have been fortunate to teach thousands of students from kindergarten to college how to really listen to one another. It is my mission to teach as many people as possible how to really listen to one another through my company, Listening Planet.
I believe, and others agree, that listening well is the most pivotal, crucial skill that any human being anywhere can develop. If we were to learn only one thing in school listening would be that thing, because through it 85% of our learning comes, all of our relationships blossom, and our businesses thrive.
Even little kids say "Listening is really important!"
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And yet we don't teach it in the schools. Just to a special few.
I only teach listening in the schools as a contractor, coming in when a brave counselor or special program asks to me come in and work with peer mediators, leadership students, students with behavior problems. Twice I have had the honor of teaching the whole school, staff, teachers and students how to listen and the results were incredible: in 9 months of training, school problems like absenteeism, referrals and suspensions, were reduced by 63%!
But none of these schools, to my knowledge, teach listening as part of the core curriculum and few language arts teachers include it as one of the arts of our language.
And yet it is the failure to listen well that causes students to do poorly on standardized tests, to forget what has been said in a classroom and to get into time and energy consuming conflicts with fellow students and family.
The failure to listen is the number one reason businesses and marriages fail. And yet only 2% of us have ever been formally trained in listening.
I propose that every language arts curriculum have a listening component in it.
I propose that secondary schools dedicate 10 minutes every day to students and teachers listening to one another.
I propose that a class in listening be mandatory nationally for anyone seeking a teaching credential.
I propose that secondary schools have a semester long class in listening.
I propose that conflicts in school be handled by mediation, where one person helps those in conflict listen to each other.
I propose that principals and counselors get out of the shame game and start engaging in deductive listening, leading a young person to his own wisdom, not cramming common wisdom down a youths' throat (which angry young person ever took advice given through shame anyway?)
I propose that schools listen to parents, that parents listen to children, that every hospital delivery room have a deck of my Listening Cards or the listening bible and hand out copies to parents along with the complimentary box of Pampers.
I propose they Hand The Listening Cards out at the marriage license registry, so every marriage can be founded on a bedrock of solid listening…
But don't get me started.
By Marcia McReynolds of Planet. She teaches people how to really listen through workshops, The Listening Cards ™, and public speaking. |
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• The Listening Place
• Pledge of Listening:
Listening should be taught in schools
• Make Molehills Out of Mountains
• Problem Solving Process
• Listening for Sustainability
• Meditations on Listening
• Depression Sign of Missed Calling
• Path to Unconditional Happiness
• Guerilla Mediation Steps
• Listening to Emotional Blocks
in the Body |
