-
Charles Ames Fischer
a book bubble about
The Power of the Socratic Classroom
Education & Reference
Author Insight
The Slowness of Active Listening
I realized early on that if my students were going to have deep conversations, they needed to have better active listening skills. Instead of building ideas, they were often just repeating each other, asking clarifying questions, and otherwise going in circles. Many such issues can be traced to a lack of listening. Deeper listening is a slow, contemplative process of weighing and deciding. But too often classroom conversations are quick and fragile, more like lunch talk than academic dialogue. I see this in classrooms where students mechanically say "I agree" without without adding anything. Many students do not savor what the previous speaker said, what the implications are, and so on. Active listening is slow, deliberate, like savoring a good meal, experiencing a sunset, or enjoying a piece of music. It is not quips and hasty agreements. I often get asked about teaching active listening. It's not hard to do, but (unsurprisingly) takes time. The teacher must model the slowness and thoughtfulness. "Let's pause here. I'd really like to think this through." The second is to use more silence: "Whoa! That's an amazing thought! I'd like to process this for a while. Let's take a minute of silence to see what else turns up in our minds."
Book Excerpt
The Power of the Socratic Classroom
OF ALL THE skills in Socratic Seminar, active listening is arguably the most important and the least practiced or appreciated. For those reasons alone,
I feel active listening deserves its own chapter. It is tempting to assume that students know how to listen considering they have been doing so for years (even before kindergarten, of course), but active listening is a skill that must be practiced and honed, just like any other. Assuming that students will naturally develop quality active listening skills is like thinking that throwing a soccer ball to a group of children will make them a soccer team.
Considering how often students must actually listen in school—Ball and Brewer suggest up to 97% of class time—it is surprising that there is rarely direct teaching or practicing of active listening as a skill, especially past primary grades. Perhaps in the lower grades there are too many other language development skills that take priority. Perhaps in the older grades, teachers assume that the students can listen well since they have had hundreds of hours of listening. Perhaps, as Leonard points out, it is because much of our sensory learning is self-taught when we are very young. Whatever the reasons, many students do not know how to actively listen.
Amazon
Barnes&Noble
Apple Books
Kobo
Click Follow to receive emails when this author adds content on Bublish
Comment on this Bubble
Your comment and a link to this bubble will also appear in your Facebook feed.