Listening is an important skill that, unfortunately, is not given its due worth in school curricula. Listening is the key to understanding, a better understanding. It is a way of communicating and appreciating the world around us. The kind of listening am talking about here is what sound expert Julian Treasure called conscious listening. This is a mental process that consciously receives and decode auditory input. Stephen Covey talks about empathic listening (from empathy) and listed it as the fifth habit of highly effective people. Empathic listening according to Stephen is an entirely different kind of listening; 'it is listening with the intent to understand, to really understand'. He added "empathic listening gets inside another person's frame of reference. You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel." (p. 251 in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People).
Teaching our kids and students to listen both empathically and consciously is integral to the healthy growth of their intellectual, social, and psychological personality.To help you learn more about the importance of listening and how to do it much better, I am sharing with you this wonderful selection of 5 TED talks all revolving around listening. Enjoy
1- Ways to Listen better
2- Want to help someone? Shut up and listen
3- Listening to global voices
4- Listen, learn then lead
5- How to truly listen
