Can anyone hear that?
On the power of listening
This week, I’m curious about the role listening plays in our empathy skills, and just how profound it is when you allow yourself to be wrong about what you previously thought about yourself and others.
Dear friends and fam,
This week I’m wondering about the role listening plays in our empathy skills and in our own personal growth. Wtf does it even mean to listen to yourself, much less someone else? It’s the subject of many self-help books and is something we most likely take for granted in the education field, or honestly, everywhere in our lives. After all, we are the experts, and we are the ones dispensing information, what does it matter if we’re listening to our students/subordinates/other humans, etc?
About five years ago, I began receiving complaints from my then-significant other that I was hard of hearing, and should absolutely go get a hearing test. I did no such thing, as my gut at the time told me I wasn’t hard of hearing, I was just good at blocking out annoying voices (this is the super secret skillset given to those of us who are ADHD, holla). Besides, what would happen if I got a hearing test, and my hearing was fine? That brought up a whole other can of worms.
Despite this, I knew that there might actually be a chance I needed a hearing aid, as everyone on my mom’s side has one by now. I internalized that perhaps I actually was hard of hearing, but figured I was far too vain to ever wear a hearing aid, so it didn’t really matter anyway.
Coupled with this belief I held about myself, every single high school classroom that I have been in seemed to have noise bouncing off its concrete walls in all directions, making those soft-spoken and shy students extra hard to hear.
So, I leaned into my hearing as my deficit, and if the students didn’t mind, please speak up so I could hear them. So much so, that it became my schtick.
A shy student would offer an answer, as others murmured across the room. After the student finished, I’d dramatically raise my hand to my ears, cupping it in posed desperation.
“I’m sorry, but could you repeat that? I can’t quite hear you over the din of the others talking. Don’t listen to your earbuds too loud or stand by the speakers at a concert, kids, or you’ll end up like me.”
That last line, every single time, brought looks of puzzlement on their faces, as if their weird teacher would be cool enough to listen to music really loud. This was an added bonus for me, because it amused me to no end.
After I would invariably ask the student to repeat what they said, I’d hold up a finger, indicating that they should wait, while my hand remained cupped around my ear, indicating that erryone else in the room needed to shut up real quick. I’d sigh dramatically as I waited, casting a menacing look at wherever the teenage chatter was originating.
Eventually, students would see me straining to listen, cupping my ear, and already know I was passive aggressively asking for silence in the room. And just like that, students would shut the f up. The gesture of me holding a finger up and cupping my hand around my ears signalled to the students that I was trying to listen, but that I needed their participation and help to actually do so.
I make it a point to emphasize that I am listening to my students, not just hearing them, but really taking their thoughts and words into account. This builds engagement quicker than anything else I have tried. Everyone just wants to be heard. I make it clear that as long as you can defend your position, you are free to speak your mind in my classroom.
Of course, sometimes that show is just that-- a show. Teachers, like surgeons, make thousands of spur of the moment decisions in any single given class, and there are times when you really cannot possibly hear-- or listen-- to everything going on.
Like in life, we all have to be selective about what we listen to. We choose which news sites to read, which shows to watch, and our digitally tracked lives reinforce that selective hearing.
Even though I have not taught for a year now, I brought this belief of my inability to hear into my personal life. Over dinner and music, I’d lean into the table, cup my ears, and ask my friends to repeat what they just said-- sorry, I can’t hear you-- I really should get my hearing checked!
So finally, the other week I finally caved and went to get a hearing test. I was absolutely certain I needed a hearing aid, and was ready to make that expensive purchase.
The results?
My hearing is fine. No, better than fine, it was perfect. The audiologist was puzzled, why did I think I was hard of hearing? Perhaps it was some latent and undiagnosed processing disorder? But, I was too old to have not been diagnosed with that prior to my visit to a hearing lab, she was stumped.
I was first relieved, and then highly amused. I burst out laughing when she told me this, and said, “well now I finally have the answer, I just haven’t been paying attention.”
At this, the audiologist looked at me like I was insane. Clearly, she wasn’t ADHD.
As soon as I learned I wasn’t hard of hearing, I re-oriented my thinking. I had to turn up the radio because the roar of traffic on the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) really is loud. It’s not just me.
And just like that, I leaned into my perfect hearing and suddenly can hear everything.
My point in this little story?
Sometimes we convince ourselves that we cannot do something, that it is too hard, that we were born this way, and that we can’t trick science. And in this way, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Like hearing, our empathy skills, or our ability to put aside our own egos and truly ponder what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes, is innate. But when we know that we are correct, our views and subject positions are the “right” ones, sometimes we mistake our lack of empathy for an inability to do it all.
This whole absurd years-long exercise in claiming to be deaf reminded me that if you think you can’t do something, or understand something, or truly listen to the words of another, then you can’t.
In this way, sometimes our minds and our own perceptions of events top even “science”-- remember I was convinced I couldn’t hear, and therefore, I couldn’t hear.
It’s hard to admit you were wrong, especially to a stern-faced Ukrainian-American audiologist who came here to have a better life who looks at you like you are insane for thinking you were deaf. But, she was the expert, not I.
Now is not the time for us to double down on even the strongest held beliefs and self-truths about ourselves. Instead, let’s imagine what we can do and how we can change if we put our minds to it.
So, if we are convinced that we already know what it is like to be in another person's shoes, we close our minds off from learning a new way of approaching our beliefs in a way that profoundly undercuts not just our humanity, but also our ability to empathize with those different from us.
What I’m saying is, don’t pull a “me” and convince yourself you already know yourself. Don’t be so sure that you can’t understand, or hear, another point of view.
You’ll be surprised what you do hear when you open yourself up to the thoughts of others.
Reparation Opportunity for the Melanin-Deficient:
Rethink what you know to be true about race, poverty, and how it connects to all of our ingrained (yet mistaken) notion that we are living in a true meritocracy.
What if we aren’t actually living in a meritocracy?
Does that change your viewpoint about poverty? About who gets the right to a good education and who does not?
It’s ok if that idea makes you uncomfortable, but don’t pull a “me” and dismiss it outright. Sit with it. Re-orient your own relationship to yourself and your achievements. Challenge the idea that if you aren’t living in a meritocracy, then you didn’t earn anything you have.
Think about it another way: what if you hadn’t had the opportunity to earn your accomplishments? That’s what real inequality is. And why us folks with some amount of privilege must be vigilant we aren’t convincing ourselves of a falsehood.
Until next week,
Allison
P.S. The saga of which freaking platform to use for NSFS has hopefully drawn to a close, this will be the last email sent out from my hastily built second substack account, and next week I’ll be using Letterdrop— so I’m only a temporary hypocrite for going back to it :P
P.P.S. If you haven’t already, subscribe!
NSFS: Not Safe for School, your snark-filled antidote to racism and corruption in education. Follow @postphdtheblog on Twitter and @allisonharbin_postphd on Instagram
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