Listening

If you think of a lower school classroom, conversations and movement might quickly come to mind, and lots of vibrant energy animates our class.  Action comes naturally to young children.  Listening, on the other hand, is a learned skill.   To be a good listener requires temporarily suspending your needs.  You have to put others first.  Many times, listening requires physically quieting your body.

We start each morning in circle, waiting in expectant silence.  We are listening for the morning greeter to welcome each person individually.  Sometimes the greeter says hello in English but just as often the greeter might say hello in Japanese, French, Swahili or Italian.  It isn’t enough just to listen for the morning greeter to say hello. The girls must also watch the greeter, paying attention to when it is their turn to make eye contact and respond.  Thus, they are developing other components of listening: watching and connecting.  Their actions demonstrate the respect they feel for the person at the center of the circle.

Working on the habit of listening affects other aspects of the girls’ growth, such as their ability to emotionally, compassionately respond to friends. The other day, Nathalie was sharing about her grandfather’s death.  Her classmates’ empathy was apparent in both the contemplative listening and in their silence.  When I asked if anyone had anything they wanted to say to Nathalie, a visitor to our class expressed how much he appreciated the way Nathalie talked about her grandfather, and, then, there was comfortable silence.  Soon, someone simply said, “I’m sorry your granddad died.” A community of listeners enables children to demonstrate their great capacity to care for others.

Stories are a huge part of our life in the classroom, and stories are useless without listeners.  The girls absorb a vast amount of information through stories. They learn about others’ lives – both the lives near by, such as their friends, but also the lives of those long ago and far away.  The girls spent a considerable amount of time this week listening to my telling the story of Queen Elizabeth I’s life.  This time there wasn’t much silence; instead, the careful listening generated a constant stream of questions.

The generosity of the adults who surround these girls has given us lots of opportunities to practice listening deeply.   Grandparents, dads and moms have come in to share their stories with the girls, and each time I observe the girls focused with rapt attention on the speaker, I feel lucky to sit where I do.   I am watching these girls mature into phenomenal listeners. They are moving beyond themselves as the center to a place where the thoughts of others are as compelling as their own.  At Springside, we want each girl to have a voice of her own, and equally as important, we want each girl to be an empathetic, curious listener.   We want her skills as a listener to propel her learning and to deepen her understanding of what it means to be a thoughtful member of a community.   ~Kristin