Teachers, school counselors, coordinators, community mental health workers and nurses, directors, parents, retirees, volunteers, and a probation officer joined our community conversation from CA, CO, MA, MN, NC, NZ, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, TX, VT, WA, Canada, and New Zealand.
Community Manager of ACEs in Education, @Lara Kain, hosted this special episode of her weekly Education Upended / A Better Normal series which was facilitated by @Jenna Quinn.
Special guests were @Graham Bodie and @Erahm Christopher. Christopher wrote and directed, Listen (the movie) and Graham Bodie who is "Chief Listening Officer," of the Listen First Project. More details about Christopher and Bodie can be found here). 
The episode began with introductions and a short discussion about listening, including the meaning of the word listen, and how it’s far more than just “lending one’s ear” but about being present, relationships with others, and sensing, hearing, feeling, and thinking with others. As participant Janice Oliver-Iraci said, “If you do it in this order: Seeing Hearing, Feeling and Thinking, then the mnemonic could be SHFT (or shift).”
We watched a short excerpt from the film Listen and shared how it made us feel. We then conversed in break-out rooms to share about experiences in our own lives where we weren’t heard or listened to as well as times when we didn’t listen to others. “We need to ask questions that get people telling stories,” Christopher said.
The non-profit organization Bodie runs, the Listen First Project, supports that mission. “We basically exist to amplify, aggregate, and align all the many efforts across the country - and really the globe - that seek to, as we say, mend the frayed social fabric one conversation at a time," he said.
Christopher shared a one-word reminder we could all use in order to improve our listening skills: OSCAR
O for Openness
S for Silence
C for Curiosity
A for Awareness
R for Respect
Selected Participant Quotes
Maggie Carlson: "When I taught education classes at our local university I had a group of 8th graders who had been trained in listening skill come in and teach my future teachers. It empowered the 8th graders and gave them a purpose and listened to and it impressed the college students in a powerful way in both how to listen as well as how their future students have great potential to teach."
Drew Factor: "I'm a physician, and I've read that even since we've been educated about the importance of listening, our time before we interrupt patients has decreased. We need to practice the art of listening in all settings! He added… “I think physicians, and many of us, are in a rush to get to our own point across.”
”In my graduate programs for educators,” said Patricia Markos, “we talk all of the time about the importance of developing relationships with the kids in our classrooms. Our instructors facilitate learning because we spend time listening to students to find out how and what they want to learn. We need to know our kids to help them learn best.”
@Gail Kennedy suggested everyone rent the movie (INSERT LINK), if possible, and those who had said it was powerful. Monica, who had watched it before the gathering said, “It was a great view” and that she “would love to see this become a teaching tool on the importance of listening in mental health nursing and community health nursing. Adrianne, a participant noted how useful the film is because, “I learn via visual, watching movies because it evokes all my senses.”
Members said they feel more hopeful, less isolated, as a result of gathering together. Judith Watt said, "I always come away from these with so many good ideas to explore," said Judith Watt. “These sessions are always uplifting and bring new energies to our work,” said Kaylene Case.
Drew Factor said, “I've been trying to promote the hashtag #ListenForAChange,” and Graham Bodie noted how "We have lifted up #ListenFirst with about 10 million reach so far. lots of social media activity around this on Twitter and Facebook,” in case others want to continue the conversation.
- Episode 47 of A Better Normal / Education Upended on Listening
- Listen, the movie
- Listen First Project
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