Eleventh grader Tina is a good student, so when she lied to gain access to a locked teacher’s office to change a grade, it was a surprise to everyone. The matter was brought before the disciplinary board, but her advisor wanted to know more about how Tina came to make such a decision. At their next meeting, he asked, “Now that the disciplinary board has handled the matter, I want to know more about how you came to do this and what it’s been like for you.”
George hasn’t handed in his homework in several weeks and nothing seems to help—he’s been given detention and other consequences and he’s still way behind, despite being smart enough to do the work. His advisor sat down with George and began their meeting by saying, “Something is clearly going on with you that I don’t understand. Tell me more about where you’re at these days.”
In both of these instances, the teachers are listening to their students, patiently asking clarifying questions and reflecting on what their students are feeling, thus opening up a conversation between advisor and student. They are building relational trust with their students1.. We believe that this crucial component of successful teaching—relational trust—starts with the teacher listening in a different way than many of us have been trained to do as teachers and advisors to our students.
Teachers and advisors are usually expected to help students identify and solve the problems they face, guiding students through the challenges of their time in school. Yet the reality is that there is only so much one can do to solve student problems. There are times when teachers need or want to learn more about their students, suspending for a time the problem-solving mode, becoming more curious, listening more fully so as to help them with their emotional developmental needs.
In this essay, we will offer a mode of advising that includes a deeper kind of listening over time. Deep listening (we will also describe this process as “relational listening”) is a way to re-structure the problem students present to teachers. Adolescents often have no real relationships that offer them a way to see their problems in a new and different light. So, first a word about the key relational role that teachers who listen may play in a particular student’s life.
Real Relationships in Schools
Students are often hungry for a meaningful and trusting relationship with a teacher. We know that a trusting relationship with an adult is essential to all young people, and is specifically a protective factor for students from stressful backgrounds. Sociologists have described the increasing vulnerability of students who come from families with material wealth; the very affluence of their families often serves to isolate them.2
Independent schools know how important teacher-student relationships are and often promise them to parents as part of the advantage of an independent school education. However, what is a real relationship between teachers and students? What does it look like, what are the challenges and what are the boundary issues? Traditional advising and teaching do not necessarily lead to true relationships with students. True relationships require listening to students in new ways.
We know now that relational styles that are created in childhood form stable personality traits through adolescence and into adulthood.3 Shools cannot replace parents in fostering secure attachment in their students, but there is a lot they can do. Research indicates that skilled teachers who foster relationships with their students produce students who achieve more.4 And the key to a strong relationship is deep listening.
Because of the expectations around authority and control in schools, the teacher-advisor is often in a problem-solving mode that focuses on “fixing” the student’s problem through advice-giving and discipline. At times, this model works very well. Sometimes it does not, despite the teacher-advisor’s best efforts. The deep listening mode of relationship invites the teacher to listen in a new and different way to students over time. In this mode, teacher-advisors shift to intentional listening to broaden their focus to more fully understand the emotional component of what their advisee is struggling with.
The Advising-Counseling Continuum
Teachers, of course, need to maintain a focus on student behavior, performance, and effective problem-solving. However, effective teachers can expand their toolbox to include what we think of as “relational listening skills” when the situation seems to call for them.
Advising and this kind of deep listening are not in opposition to each other. We don’t do deep listening instead of disciplining or advising students. We don’t listen instead of teaching. It is very possible to do relational listening and advise and discipline students. Advising and this type of “counseling” are two poles along a continuum of a caring relationship between teachers and students.
Advising is a way of relating to students that is task-oriented and emphasizes the teacher talking. We strive to tell students how to manage their external reality; for example, how to plan their schedule so as to get their homework done while also leaving time for their other interests. We emphasize behavior: Where do you study? What do you do when you first get home? How much time are you spending IM’ing? Our orientation is prescriptive, as we try to fix a problem: “You’re behind in your biology homework — how much time are you spending on the Internet? What if you finish your homework first and then go online with your friends?” We try to be sympathetic: “You can get your homework done! You’ve done it before. I know you can do well in my course.” In advising, we emphasize success and failure: “If you keep up the great work, you’ll do fine on the exam.” We give advice, focus on closure to the discussion, and place less emphasis on the relationship with the student or on confidentiality (“Mr. R tells me your grades are pretty low in Latin. I’ll let him know we’ve talked and have made a homework plan.”).
Deep listening is on the other side of the relationship continuum. The purpose is not to solve a problem or to complete a task. The teacher is present less as a talker and more as an active listener—a “relational listener.” We’re curious about the student’s internal reality, so we ask more than tell. We emphasize the emotional context, the feeling level of experience, where instead of ourselves providing information, the student has the data. We’re curious about their internal life; we are empathic and supportive. Deep listening strives to clarify feelings. It requires patience, but, remarkably, not a lot more time. With this kind of relationship, you’re not always sure of what comes next in the conversation and there may be a sense of “muddling” around in unfamiliar territory. The goal is student growth and maturation and an increase in self-esteem and self-awareness, and it takes place within a more long-term, open-ended timeframe than advising. Instead of offering advice, we emphasize self-discovery. Because deep listening operates on the feeling level, it deepens the relationship with students.
Teachers are often trained in advising, less often in relational listening. Ideally, we can weave back and forth between advising and deep listening over time in our relationship with a student. In learning listening skills, we can expand our toolbox, as we assess whether we face more of an advising or relational listening situation. Do I want to move toward creating space for student self-disclosure? Do I want to emphasis problem-solving, helping the student move into the world, facing challenges and emphasizing self-mastery or is this a time for more open-ended conversation with attention to the student’s feelings?
When initiating a deep listening conversation, we may be relying on a gut feeling we have about a student—we sense sadness or anxiety and want to know more. When you listen deeply, you are gathering more information about the student’s inner world. Rather than feeling that you have to resolve whatever problems you hear about when listening in this way, you are working with the student to figure out his or her take on the situation. When this process works, the student goes from feeling helpless to a place of choice and empowerment about some “stuck place” in his or her life.
Let’s now take a more in-depth look at what’s involved in really listening.
What does it mean to really listen to students?
- Listening as a process. Listening is an activity, not a passive process. Be aware if you are interrupting with questions that take students off the topic. Some of the first questions to consider are: How well do I listen? Is the conversation a ping-pong game of back-and-forth without really hearing what students are saying? Do I provide enough space for students to begin to explore, really telling me about what they are feeling?
- Creating an accepting stance, withholding judgment and advice, encouraging students to talk.
- Feelings are the facts. We focus on finding and following what students are feeling about whatever they are facing.
- Our task when listening deeply is to understand and clarify what we hear.
- The emphasis is on joining with students to look at theirexperience and to provide them support in the process of sorting out what they feel.
- Given the reality of “life on the run” in schools, we try to take our time when listening to students. The emphasis is not on “getting somewhere.” We schedule conversations as needed over time.
- Our major challenge as relational listeners: resisting the temptation to fix the problem!
- We keep ourselves separate even as we are connected to students. We don’t generally interject comments like, “the same thing happened to me” or “I had a student last year who went through the same thing.” The focus is on student experiences.
- Know yourself and be yourself, aware of both your special inclinations and limitations. There is no one right way to counsel; we all have our own way of saying things and responding. There is not one “cookbook” approach. The relationship is your most useful tool, and the best relationship is one in which you are authentic.
- Don’t feel a need to engage in deep listening unless it is warranted—when advising doesn’t work, then we become curious and the listening process starts.
- Confidentiality is essential for effective relational listening. Students need to know that you are not simply plying them for information that will be shared gratuitously or without their knowledge. Rule of thumb: “if you tell me you are in imminent danger of harming yourself or someone else, I will get help. Otherwise, what you tell me, stays with me.” Though teachers need to be aware of the expectations regarding student privacy within a given school culture, the principle stands: when you are engaged in deep listening, you are listening with your heart.
Some Obstacles to Deep Listening
Having an open conversation with an authority figure is not easy for some students. When a teacher shows compassionate curiosity and interest, it helps to resolve the authority issue. Particularly to an adolescent, “you can tell me anything” is not a trustworthy statement until it has been proven in behavior. Deep listening is a posture of sincere curiosity about another person; when you are in that authentic posture, you will both deserve and gain trust.
From the teacher’s point of view, our own understanding of authority can get in the way. How do I go from being an authority to being a “deep listener” and then go back to being an authority? Deep listening involves removing the mask of authority and being willing to stay in the “not-knowing zone.” As one participant at the Stanley King Counseling Institute observed, “you’ve got to be a little lost if you are counseling.” That means surrendering some power without losing authority. You are always listening as an adult; you are not a student’s peer, and the student never really sees you as not-an-authority. This may create challenges for the younger teacher, for whom boundaries with the young (as well as his or her personal sense of authority) may be the least well-defined.
In conversations, are you more naturally a listener or a talker? For each, there can be obstacles to “relational listening.” Some of us find it hard to relax enough to really listen to a student. We may feel we had the same experience and want to interject our experience, which inadvertently takes the focus off the student. If we are really listening, some amount of silence will happen organically and can help both people digest what is being said and felt. Instead of giving in to the impulse to fill what would otherwise be an “awkward silence,” try naming the silence through a clarifying comment such as “I notice it got quiet here; there’s a lot to think about” or “Do you mind if I take a moment to process that before responding?” What’s important is that the student knows that what they are saying has an impact.
On the other hand, too much non-responsive listening can leave the student feeling like you’re not (and don’t want to be) there. A well-placed, empathic grunt, mmmm…, or sigh, can communicate to a student that you’re here and listening closely.
Another obstacle to deep listening is the feeling you may have that in asking about “what’s really going on,” we are pushing too deeply, being invasive or “prying.” Experience has shown us that students generally like it when their teachers show supportive interest in them. Much student behavior is actually an attempt to get people to notice them, to show they have worth and that they matter. When teachers engage in relational listening with a student, the student experiences that the teacher cares, and that words matter. As a good listener, you can maintain a respectful boundary by being patient, maintaining a curious but not insistent attitude, moving slowly toward understanding what a student is feeling without pushing him or her in a way that feels controlling.
A final obstacle lies in the worry about finding out something that really does need action or an immediate response or referral. You may think, correctly: “I’m not a trained counselor.” So, part of this work involves learning what is a “red flag,” using consultation within your school community to learn how to make judgments about referrals and interventions.
What is necessary for teachers to listen better in our schools?
1. Support within the school culture for teachers and advisors to switch to deep listening when needed.
2. Developing the skills to listen and respond to the affective realm.
3. An on-going connection between teachers and the school’s counseling program with proactive identification of resources if there is no counselor.
4. An adult climate of respect for each other, the students, and their privacy.
5. Time and space for a different type of connection with students.
6. Resources for consultation and referral: all adults in a community should know where to bring a student about whom they are seriously concerned.
The student’s agitated heart
Teachers provide instruction on all sorts of subject matter and, in doing so, we foster our students’ cognitive and intellectual development. We advise our students on how to meet the rules, requirements, and expectations of a demanding school environment. We assert that fostering students’ emotional growth and self-awareness is of equally critical importance. Tina or George will, in all likelihood, survive their missteps with a disciplinary or advising response alone. However, with deep listening, they can gain insight and develop the emotional intelligence to make better decisions and cope better with the challenges they face.
For students coming of age in our demanding and confusing world, the deep listening relationship may be as important as the advising one. In the words of poet Robert Frost,
We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But, oh, the agitated heart
Till someone really finds us out.
R. Frost, “Revelation,” In A Boy’s Will5
References
1. Bryk, A.S. and Schneider, B.L. (2002) Trust In Schools: A core resource for improvement. NY: Russell Sage
2. Luthar, S. S., & Latendresse, S. J. (2005). Children of the affluent: Challenges to well-being. Current Directions in Psychological Science,14 , 49-53.
3. Wallin, D. (2007). Attachment in Psychotherapy, NY: Guilford
4. http://www.apa.org/education/k12/relationships.aspx. See also Noam, G.G and Fiore, N. (ed), (2003). The Transforming Power of Adult-Youth Relationships, vol. 103, New Directions in Youth Development, http://www.pearweb.org/ndyd/archive.html#103
5. Frost, R (1999) A Boy’s Will, NY: Holt, 1915