When a Teacher Put Her Notes Down and Listened
When kids watch adults talking about critical issues or directing a lesson in school or online class, what do they see and hear? Are they learning to talk AT people with a message that just adds to the noise? Think of what kids have seen and heard in the last 12 months. They may be getting an education, but what are they learning from us? As parents, teachers, or adults in their life, how can we show kids we remember what we learned in kindergarten about taking turns and letting the other person go first?
Stephen Covey famously described this in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People with the phrase “seek first to understand, then be understood.” Letting others go first as a five-year-old sounds like learning basic manners and classroom management. One way to remember this lesson is to look in the mirror and count the ears to mouth ratio. As they grow older, we hope they realize there are important reasons why it’s good to listen before talking.
Several years ago, a seasoned teacher was starting a new unit with her second graders on simple machines. She taught this unit many times and had everything organized and set up for this group of students. There were standards to follow and lessons carefully designed to help the kids demonstrate their knowledge on a developmentally appropriate unit test.
This teacher was introducing the unit to her students modeling confidence and genuine interest in the lesson when a student’s hand went up. If you’ve ever read a story or taught a lesson to a group of young students, you know that there is an art to handling questions gracefully while keeping you your overall plan. They were just getting to the key part of the lesson and she figured the question could wait.
She was about to redirect this excited child to save the thought until later when she did something unusual. She put her lesson plan down and listened. She listened to this second grader’s idea on what the class could do to learn about simple machines. The teacher asked questions. Other students chimed in with ideas. In a few minutes of creative genius, her class blew her lesson plan for the day AND the unit out of the water with something much better.
She remembered some feedback she received from a workshop we did with her colleagues a couple weeks earlier. It was clear she could grow as a teacher by stopping to listen to her students and ask questions before telling them what’s on her mind. This was her moment and she walked away amazed.
This newly refreshed teacher outlined a new unit plan and invited her students to help sketch out the lessons and activities. The students were totally engrossed in simple machines and took the science topic to a new level that excited everyone. The showed joy in the learning and this experienced teacher became a learner with them. She too enjoyed planning and teaching these new lessons more than her previous ones.
OF course, they still had to demonstrate their knowledge with a developmentally appropriate test aligned with the assigned standard. To her surprise, the results from this new collaborative unit topped all her previous classes. By seeking first to understand her students as learners, this teacher helped them experience the wonder of simple machines. She also taught them the value of letting others go first, even when you have something important to say or do.
When adults stop to listen to kids before talking, we just might learn something that makes things better for everyone.
