“Man was endowed with two ears and one tongue, that he may listen more than speak.” – Hasdai, Ben HaMelekh veHaNazir, ca. 1230, chapter 26
We introduced Habit #5 this week at our monthly “Habits of Kindness” assembly: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Our 8th Graders introduced the habit through skits and song and the essence of the habit seems to boil down to the ability to be a deep, active, empathetic listener. Therefore, many of the activities we will engage in this month will be to educate and encourage our students (and our teachers and our parents) to practice the skills of being better listeners.
This is actually something I blogged about a long time ago with regard to thinking through how we prepare our teachers for challenging conversations with parents. More recently, however, it is a topic that I actually have had the privilege of teaching to exceptional leaders in the day school school field through a program called YU Lead (part of the Yeshiva University Institute for University-School Partnership). It is the second year I have taught this module and each time, I have used similar prompts to facilitate fascinating conversations.
So what I thought I would do to inspire conversation here is to share the prompts and see what it…prompts!
The part that I want to share here was the part that was the most impactful to the students and was borrowed completely from a professional development session we did here with our faculty with Dr. Elliott Rosenbaum in preparation for an early round of Parent-Teacher Conferences in which he showed us the following examples of ineffective and effective communication:
This led, with our faculty, to a very productive conversation about listening that opened our eyes (or I guess, ears!) to a better way of interacting with the parents in our school.
When I use it for YU Lead, I ask the following question:
Compare and contrast “The Ineffective Physician” and “The Effective Physician”. What can we learn about the art of communicating difficult truths?
And to be fair, I ask the school people to read an article from a parent’s perspective called, “Help! I Can’t Talk to My Child’s Teacher!” by Domeniek Harris.
And then I ask the following questions:
- What new ideas about parent-school partnerships has this conversation raised for you?
- How will these new ideas impact your current practice?
- What new ideas about parent communication has this conversation raised for you?
And I then spend the rest of the week, mediating a conversation between these rising professionals on these topics and wherever these topics take us…
So…I invite you to check out the clips, read the article, and share how you think our school – its teachers, students and parents – can do a better job to embody the habit of “seek first to understand, then to be understood”!
