A Week for ListeningTime to Embrace Listening

Since 2010, World Listening Day has been observed on July 18. The date was chosen to celebrate the birthday of R. Murray Schafer, a well-known Canadian composer, writer, musician, researcher, and educator.


Schafer was a key figure in the early “acoustic ecology” movement whose purpose was to encourage people of all ages to slow down, quiet down, and focus on the world of sounds that surround them in both town and country atmospheres. He used the term soundscape to indicate the rich world of auditory tones, much as landscape indicates the vistas that comprise the world of visual surroundings.

During this special week The Museum of Teaching and Learning encourages readers to focus on enhanced listening throughout their lives.


WHO?
The person to start with is YOU, for just as the most effective teachers of reading are readers and of writing are writers, the person who can best help others listen must be an effective listener.


HOW?
Step out. Leave your usual environment and walk out the door, away from your physical or psychic cubicle. You do not have to go far; you just need to change environments (or habits).


Switch off. In this tech-obsessed, engine-driven, visual-infused world, listening to subtle sounds and earnest messages gets sidetracked. You are probably familiar with the scenes of couples dining together, but immersed in their cellphone scrolling. Alas, a walk in the neighborhood may be punctuated by unpleasant blasts from leaf-blowers, motorcycles, and amped-up radios blasting from cars passing by. You’ll need a better spot or better time. Leave your own electronic devices behind.


Open up. Expand your physical presence, literally. Breathe deeply. Gesture widely. Unfold.


Pay attention. Concentrate on sounds or, in human exchanges, attend to the words. Stifle the urge to interrupt, correct, or insert your own stories. Silence is a learned behavior. It requires practice.

WHY?
Better listening can enrich the relationships in your life in many significant ways. You will be able to:


Engage with the natural world. Wind sighing, trees rustling, creatures scuffling, birds calling.


Unite with your significant other. Allow them to express “This is how I feel. This is what I think.”


Deepen understandings with your children. Slow down, be present in the same world. Parents, however, need not be playmates. Share.


Empathize with your friends. Dialogue is an interactive see-saw, not a two-way street where vehicles whiz past each other.


Connect and cooperate with your colleagues. Good ideas can be delivered by soft voices.


Get in touch with yourself. Listen to the kinds of music that connect you with your emotions and memories, past or current.

WHEN?
Starting small is often the best way, but do insert practice into your daily life. Create routines. For example, a focus on listening as you take a walk can help that behavior to grow and infuse other parts of your life.


WHERE?
Wherever you are. Although World Listening Day is mostly about soundscapes, MOTAL contends that Listening Week can be about the ways paying attention can also enhance relationships and improve learning. To that end, you may enjoy the following references. For example, did you know that listening is a significant part of the expected curriculum in the military? And that marriage and family counselors who help others improve their life interactions must be good listeners in order to help their clients be . . . good . . . listeners?


Supportive Articles
Standards for the English Language Arts


10 Steps To Effective Listening


Listening to People


Origin of "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."? - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange


How to Apply Active Listening in the Workplace | MySECO


WORLD LISTENING DAY - July 18, 2021 | National Today


Acoustic Ecology and Ethical Listening | Center for Humans & Nature


R. Murray Schafer – The Living Composers Project


Thank you for “listening,”
Submitted by Greta Nagel


P.S. State Public School Curriculum Standards for the English Language Arts address Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening—and, in many cases, Visual Literacy, A scan of standards reveals that specifics regarding Listening are scarce. Very. On another day, MOTAL may want to explore that dearth of detail. Is it lack of attention? Of knowledge? Teachers must have more to do and say than “Put on your listening ears.”