Learning to listen is an important skill for children, and one of the ways we go about teaching the concept is to investigate the physical, emotional, and intellectual dimensions of listening. We like to provide four models for students: defensive listening, whole-body listening, active listening, and mindful listening.
Defensive listening is a rooted in our biological and evolutionary history: we are always alert to the threat of attack, and it is natural for people to feel like they need to seem smart, be ready with the right answer, or point of the flaws of others that can threaten our success. Specific behaviors can include interrupting others, responding immediately after someone finishes speaking, and using louder volume or stronger language than the original speaker to express disagreement. Think of this as a verbal manifestation of the fight-or-flight instinct. The good news is that these behaviors are sometimes the result of unexamined habit, and that intention and practice can help children learn new ways of engaging as listeners.
Because it is rooted in the movement of the body, whole-body listening is a great initial alternative to explore with children based on their lived experience. The positive behaviors that students usually identify include eyes looking at the person talking, mouth remaining quiet, hands in lap or by your sides, feet on the floor and keeping still, and body and head facing the speaker. We like to extend the conversation to include two more concepts from Michelle Garcia Winner's social thinking paradigm: using your brain to think about what the speaker is saying, and using your heart to care about what the speaker is saying.
Active listening is closely related to whole-body listening in keeping eye contact and using non-verbal cues to show you are following the speaker. Importantly, active listening extends into response behaviors, such as giving a short pause after the speaker finishes before responding, and asking questions in a neutral tone. Active listening also includes a meta-cognitive level of intention to the act of listening: Marshall Goldsmith emphasizes the importance of discipline as a core behavior in active listening, while in a recent post, Annie Paul Murphy wrote about three mental strategies for how to be an effective active listener: using higher-order thinking skills such as goal setting and prediction prior to engaging in the act of listening, monitoring and maintaining focus during listening, and then reviewing and evaluating what you hear.
Interested in more? Check out Julian Treasure's TED talk on Five Ways to Listen Better (thanks to Head of School Mitch Bostian for passing along the link).
