Listening
In Student Assistance Training, we spend hours
talking about and practicing our listening and communication skills. Time
spent listening to our students is often all that needs to happen for things to
improve. Listening in and of itself is an intervention. Remember,
intervention is a process of change over time. Listening is the primary
fuel that moves the intervention process.
In our training, we focus on what it feels like: it
includes proximity, open posture, eye contact, slight forward lean, sometimes a
respectful touch, etc.
We also brainstorm what it feels like: warm,
caring, valued, worthwhile, affirmed, respected, all very powerful emotions.
This is what we bring our students when we simply take the time to
listen.
Listening is a respectful, caring connection.
For the "at risk," disconnected student, listening is healing.
Our listening inspires hope. Listening builds meaning in lives that
are lost. Listening seeks to find the truth. Listening introduces
people to themselves. It is a key tool in self-awareness.
On a purely educational basis, children need
communication for brain development. Children need conversation with
adults. In our Student Assistance Teams, we intervene when we act as
mentors, role models, and listeners of children. We are all in need of
slowing down. Our world is hectic and frightening for some children.
When we slow down and quietly and gently listen to our students, we help
the whole child develop.
Real Presence
The highest quality of listening demands "Real
Presence." The difference between intervention and co-dependence is
like the difference between embracing and wallowing in life's problems.
When we wallow in our own or other's problems, we are codependent. When
we embrace our own or other’s problems, we are whole and healthy. To embrace a problem demands real presence.
Real presence means being fully involved - being personal, invested, and
subjective. Real presence is a decision to be a person of quality and to
be nourishing to ourselves and others. Everything in life can be
nourishing.
Everything can be a blessing. As the father of a severely
profoundly disabled child (Ashley cannot speak or move on her own), I
understand real presence. Ashley, in her quiet and profound way, demands
my real presence. I know that she hears me as I watch her slight eye
movements. I know she feels better in my presence as I touch her hand and
feel her little fingers grip my thumb. All life is sacred. As we
share our presence with others, we are enhanced. Real presence saves us
from mediocrity, it saves us from apathy and boredom, and it rescues us from
carelessness and selfishness. It brings us meaning and hope.
