The forgotten art of listening – Belleville Intelligencer

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The three R’s are taught in the early grades as we all learn to read and write, add and subtract and memorize multiplication tables.

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At least that’s how it was when I zipped through elementary school way back in the 1950s. In English class we were encouraged to express ourselves through creative writing, public speaking or perhaps taking part in drama in some form. And as we shared our creativity we were honing our communication skills.

The emphasis here was how best to convey our thoughts and talents as clearly as possible. Yet it seemed that all spoken word exercises were being taught only from the speaker’s point of view, with little or no time spent teaching the fine art of listening.

And that is a missed opportunity because young children are inherently remarkable listeners. They take in words, ideas and speech patterns, quite often without our awareness – their developing brains receptive and well disposed for listening. Yet somewhere along the way, we teach them to stop listening.

Perhaps these eager, still wide-open minds would benefit from lessons in selective silence, concentration, while focusing on the know-how to process any and all incoming information. Sadly, to the best of my knowledge, no such programs are offered. And that’s a shame because in today’s high-tech, high-speed world, the ability to communicate effectively is more important than ever.

And yet we seem to allocate increasingly less time to actually listening to one another. There is no question that we are a nation of bad listeners. One reason might be the fact that we have become a much more visual society as a result of exposure to television, the Internet, and all manner of hand-held wireless gadgets. We tend to be more self-absorbed, distracted, primarily focused on hearing ourselves talk rather than listening to others.

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The fact is, listening is as important a skill as making yourself heard. The ability to listen well improves many aspects of our daily lives. It helps build solid relationships, solve problems, and ensure proper interpretation and understanding, as well as improving our conflict resolution skills.

And while it’s conceivable (we live in hope) that our kids might eventually learn to speak and write with a modicum of eloquence – it’s a safe bet that little will be done to sharpen their listening skills. And when we factor in the distraction of so many high-tech communication tools – it’s no wonder the fine art of listening is slip sliding away.

I attended a small family gathering a few years ago and almost everyone except my 86-year-old aunt was incessantly texting or checking email on their iPhones. It made me wonder why we had bothered to get together in the first place as we were paying so little attention to one another. We could just as easily have had an online get-together.

Listening – truly listening – is indeed a rare and special talent. And one that takes a lot of practice and dedication. But once you have gotten comfortable with the technique, you might find your next tête-à-tête a whole lot more meaningful.

Simply listening for nuances in conversation will provide so much more context and substance to the words you are hearing. Remember, in order to be interesting you must first be interested. And in conversation, you are supposed to be listening…not waiting to talk.

Terry serves up a little food-for-thought each week and welcomes readers’ comments: countrysunshine@xplornet.ca