Can You Hear Me Now?

I advise my students to find out what’s important to their instructor, not just me but any instructor, and make sure to study that, because chances are good it will show up more often on quizzes and tests. You’d like to think tests equally reflect all the course material, but teachers are people and people have preferences. And preferences influence us, even if we don’t realize it. But deviating from the norm seems to be a thematic thread in my life, so I tend to concentrate test questions on things that challenge me--like listening, which is really hard. Since I have two degrees in Communication and have been teaching it for seventeen years, the fact that I have not yet mastered the art of listening is sad. But listening takes a lot of work. As I tell my students: Hearing and listening are not interchangeable and listening implies intent. Which means you have to listen on purpose. And that takes a level of concentration I’m not always comfortable with. I once went on a school trip to Yosemite and one of the activities planned for us was a nighttime walk where we spread out far apart and were supposed to use the time for reflecting and really listening to the sounds of the evening. It was seriously one of the longest hours of my life. In Paul Showers’ The Listening Walk, one little girl hears, really hears, her neighborhood for the first time. One of these days, I’ll tackle mine.

http://www.amazon.com/Listening-Walk-Paul-Showers/dp/0064433226

http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/12722/Paul_Showers/index.aspx