WE HEAR ALL THE TIME BUT LISTENING IS MORE IMPORTANT

ACTIVE readers learn discriminatory skills and respond to incoming stimuli to better equip them to negotiate their environments more meaningfully and safely. In fact, it was a dictum during my childhood that we had to learn the three Rs – reading, (w)riting, and (a)rithmetic.

We famously learn about the world through the seven holes in our heads. Go ahead, count them, starting with two eyes. I became acutely aware that I had been doing this all my life only when I read a novel called Landscape with Tea.

Of the five senses, we would agree that hearing and sight are the top sensory experiences. I shall concentrate on hearing. Having been involved with teacher training for more than 20 years, I am reasonably familiar with the skill. We have a fancy term we use during our lectures on hearing – auditory discrimination. It’s awfully intimidating, but it gets our students to do the two things that are essential to learning: hearing and listening.

Hearing is a passive activity. We are bombarded with sounds throughout the day. We don’t pay too much attention either, because of familiarity or because what we hear is not essential to our immediate existence. We can hear a song and hum along without ever learning the words. Listening, on the other hand, requires deeper cognition. It means we need to process the incoming information, in this case through the ears, and process it further. We have definite agendas or reasons for this. Preparing for examinations is one. Accessing auditory material for memorisation, processing and production of papers and essays, preparing a speech – these are some instances where the difference between hearing and listening are clarified and prioritised.

It doesn’t require rocket science to establish that listening is a skill that is pivotal to understanding, comprehension and reasonably predictable responses. Also, that bad listeners are central to misunderstanding, aggression and the other negative outcomes of “not paying attention”. Ultimately, that is what listening is. It’s a serious attempt to understand an instruction, a request, a question, an answer, a threat, a promise and the ubiquitous, if ominous, terms and conditions that flummox anybody who has made a long-term payment agreement.

When teachers get unexpected or “wrong” answers, they should replay whatever it is they said or asked. Often the child gives the “wrong” answer because they did not hear the question. The scenario has numerous implications around pronunciation, enunciation, articulation, accent, volume, projection and so forth. Our protocol of mask-wearing is one of the greatest inhibitors to understanding and concomitant learning during the prolonged stay of the Covid threat.

While I was in America on a language study tour, an example of the phenomenon came up. A learner asked her teacher: Who is Richard Stands? This after reciting the oath of allegiance which had replaced prayer at the start of the school day. It turned out that learners promised allegiance to the flag and all for which it stands. The “for which it stands” was received as “for Richard Stands”. One can imagine the consequences of such flawed auditory reception, perception and response.

This brings me to my favourite part of this week’s article: Helen Adams Keller. She was a countryman of Richard Stands. She was an author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. She was born in Alabama on June 27, 1880, and died on June 1, 1968. During her life, she inspired and influenced millions of people, spreading her gifts as a teacher through her writing and teaching. She was mentored and tutored to achieve the stellar academic and humanitarian heights by a lady named Anne Sullivan. Why do I mention this?

Helen Adams Keller was blind and deaf from the tender age of 19 months due to contracting a febrile disease. Read her story, and factor it into this week’s piece that says clearly and simply: learn to listen, then listen to learn. Thanks for the guidance, Shelley.