Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Hearing is Not Listening

In Is Anybody Listening? from Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher shares,

“Excellent listening remains the hallmark of an excellent person and, I would add, an engaging conversationalist as well.”

I agree with her that people hear but they don’t really listen. Hearing is not the same as listening. With hearing, we know that people are saying words but we aren’t really comprehending what they are saying. We might even miss something important or respond inappropriately.

Too many people are engaged in their electronic devices and don’t want to be interrupted so they only hear that people are talking. They don’t really listen to what they are saying. They know they hear words but they don’t have any meaning.

Many people don’t realize that they are missing valuable people interactions but focusing on the nonliving devices. I think that is why many people are losing their social skills because they don’t practice them enough.

I also don’t think we listen to the elderly enough. It seems like the older people get, the more they like to share their memories. We recently had an annual hiking club meeting where some of our older members were sharing hiking stories but we ran out of time. It hit me that when these people are gone, many of these hiking stories are gone. So, I hope this summer to get out and record some of their stories.

I also think we need to get more veterans in classes to share stories with students. There are many valuable history lessons in these stories.

Many elderly crafters also have stories they could tell. I think they have learned shortcuts or have creative ideas that people would like to know about.

How do you feel about hearing and listening? Please share.
-->


-->

No comments: