On Listening

Edith wrote:

When someone gave me a DVD player for Christmas and said, "Just plug it in to the wall and the TV and you'll be watching movies tonight," I wanted to throw the batteries (not the remote, it's breakable) at them and run for that cabin in the woods as fast as my 64 year old legs would take me.

But it's the age of technology and everyone can and should be able to do SOME of these techno things. I had help with my DVD because there are too many possible plug in places on the back of my TV. But when I lost my internet connection for the SECOND time, and after Rob [ Molly’s husband ] came and fiddled with it and finally said, “Call Sigecom,” I was really frustrated. I went to bed and dreamed of my escape. I would take the 4 lane highway till it became the deer path in the woods and never see electricity, much less internet ever again.

When I woke up (about 15 minutes later) I knew I had to call Sigecom and try. All my kids are just a click away, even Regis in Estonia!! So I called and got a very patient man who talked me through a very complicated (at least to me) set of directions. And as you see, I'm back on the net!! HOORAY!!!

Now how did this all happen? Well, when I was about three, I learned to listen and do. I always told my second graders that learning to read was very important. If you can read and understand, you can build your own car, bake a complicated cake, make almost anything... But I think being able to listen and hear and follow directions, both the simple and the more complicated, may actually be more important today or at least AS important!!

So, before I went to bed, I was able to find his blog and read about the trip to Estonia, and I sent Regis an email before I went to bed last night!

E

This is the most important thing a teacher teaches – listening, but if a teacher hasn't learned to do it, she can't teach a student how. There are many ways we listen. We listen with out ears, with our hearts, with our minds, and with our gut. But primarily, the first lesson is to learn to listen with our ears. “What did I say?” By hearing the words, you can then go to what someone meant.

“I need for you to be quiet,” comes the teacher’s directive. Children who have learned to listen to meaning know that that means stop talking. Children who are still struggling with the words might think the teacher has a need, but it has nothing to do with them, so that they continue to talk.

Some children begin to listen for meaning and with their hearts at a very young age. It comes from good and loving homes. “I need for you to be quiet,” says the teacher, and the child who is good and loving understands the primary word is “need” not quiet. This is the child who is a teacher’s blessing.

Then there is the child who understands the directive with his mind, and he understands that for the betterment of the whole group, he should stop talking. He’s the altruistic child, usually a leader, and usually the head of his class.

Listening with the mind often has to do with reading. When you read, you listen with your mind and imagination. Learning to do that is more than learning to read. An important part of reading is imagining, moving away from absolutes and toward possibilities.

The primary objective in any human development scheme is to rear children so that they understand the world around them and can apply what they have learned to the loving of one another.

Understanding means listens with all three – ears, heart and mind.

As for the gut, sometimes there are inaudible words, words not said, words hiding and too shy to be said. These we hear with our instincts.

Listening takes a lifetime of practice.