Listening

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose....a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.
-Ecclesiastes 3:1,7



I had an experience this week that took me back to a the first quarter of my credentialing program, to a reading and subsequent class discussion on teaching through listening, and assuming a "listening stance" in the classroom.

For several works, I had been trying to work out ways to keep Travis* engaged and learning in my classroom--or, at very least, to keep him from pestering, annoying, and offending the students around him. When I would correct him, or keep him after class to remind him of our "Classroom Community Expectations," he would look up at me with a smug little smirk that bore the faint odor of defiance--the kind of expression that seems to say "you can talk all you want to, teacher, I'll just be drawing horns and a tail on you in my imagination."

The more I corrected and reminded, the more disruptive he became. Other students started complaining to me about his behavior; I knew I had to do something different, but what to do? Finally, the other day, Travis disrupted the class one too many times. My patience hanging by a few tenuous fibers, I informed him that he would be spending his entire lunch period with me that day. Remembering that only a day or two before he had failed to show up what I euphemistically call a "lunch conference," I added that if he did not come to my classroom at the beginning of lunch, I would come out into the school yard and find him, and when I found him, he could believe me that he would wish I hadn't. I got the same smirk, and couldn't help but wonder what kind of pictures he was drawing in me in his head.

To my surprise, he did show up that day at lunch. After finishing with a couple of students who had come in with questions about their scores on a recent test, I sat Travis down and warmed myself up for another lecture. I opened my mouth to explain what I was seeing in his behavior, why it was a problem, and why it needed to change--for his own sake, and for the sake of the whole class. However, before I had articulated a complete thought, I had an subtle but distinct impression: Stop. Be quiet. Close your mouth, and listen to what he has to say.

So I stopped.

"Travis," I suggested, "why don't you tell me how you feel about what's going on in this class?"
"Well, Mr. Douglas, I'm kind of bored." Boredom. Excellent. This was at least something I could work with. We discussed why people feel boredom, and the everybody gets bored sometimes. We talked about being bored because class is to hard, because class is too easy, or just because it's hard to stay focused. He observed that he was usually bored because he was lost, and that perhaps if he sat closer to the front of the classroom, where he could see better, he wouldn't get lost so easily, and thus wouldn't be so bored. Moving him close to the front seemed almost to simple a solution. I had to do a bit of juggling so as to keep him away from other students he'd had problems with in the past, but I moved him to the front today. It may not solve all his problems, but it's a start; Travis' behavior, while not yet perfect, has markedly improved. Perhaps it was just the simple act of listening, of acknowledging his voice, that changed the dynamic of our relationship so that he didn't feel such a need to resist me, nor I him.

I look back now on our class discussions at Stanford on assuming a "listening stance," striving to be open and responsive to student voices. That was a discussion that moved me, that inspired me, while sitting in CERAS 300 as a prospective teacher. Going back to the same article now, as a six week old teacher, helps me realize not only how essential listening is, but how difficult it is. The odd thing is, that isn't the case with all students. With some, it comes so naturally to rememeber to stop and to earnestly listen to the student's voice, as well as to listen for the things I am not hearing. With others, however, it is not so easy.

Some students, while disruptive or easily distracted, seem naturally responsive, and so it is easy to respond to them. Others, though, like Travis, seem to enter the classroom even as a young sixth-grader with a conception of teacher-as-adversary. Once a resistant relationship is formed, it is an incredible challenge to infuse it with openness and responsiveness. That, I suppose, is one of the fundamental challenges I face in becoming the sort of teacher (and for that matter son, brother, and eventually husband and father) that I want to be--one who is always responsive, compassionate, and meek, even in the face of resistance and defiance. I have begun to learn that teaching is at once rewarding and painful in part because it uncovers and illuminates all my character flaws, bringing them out in stark relief as I work to craft myself into the teacher I would be.



*Not his real name, for obvious reasons.