When we sit in a circle and honor the talking piece and who is speaking, we are retraining our brains not to be in competition, not to wait for our turn to talk and sound smartest, not to come up with the 'best' example. Instead, we are sitting in the circle to share but mostly just to listen, to hear what another person is saying. Make no mistake about it - this is a complete restitching to how we have been schooled to interact and, often, not interact. And it requires effort.
While much of how teacher ed is structured on the implicit theory that reflecting will change our practices, it's worth nothing that sometimes by changing how we act, we can then change how we think. Just listening actively creates neural pathways where the goal isn't to speak first, loudest, most authoritatively, but to listen to connect. Imagine if classrooms and schools ran on that ethic rather than the first hand raised wins.
Please feel free and invited to share any thoughts you have about the circles on this thread.
leigh.
I personally loved doing this. I hope we can do it again in the future :)
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I really felt like I learned a lot more about people in our class in ways that I definitely would not have had we been having a more structured, content-oriented discussion. Also, learning through people's personal narratives and lived experiences reminds me (once again) that we constantly put people into categories, but it is through talking and learning with/about others that we realize and are reminded just how inadequate and limited our categories are. Thank you, Naysha and Laurent!
ReplyDelete"it's worth nothing that sometimes by changing how we act, we can then change how we think"
ReplyDeleteI think the above quote is so relevant and something I don't recognize or practice enough. In a weird way, it's sort of like muscle-memory, I think. As a creative writing concentrator, I've been told numerous times that writing is a muscle, and that you have to keep writing to get good at writing. It isn't enough to sit and think about being a great writer. I think the same can be said about changing our actions. I tend to be one who waits to talk, rather than listens. Even in the circle, I found myself chomping at the bit to speak and share and chime in when I agreed with others -- the first time around. By the second time around, I was already starting to actually listen more. I find it difficult to sit and just listen. Maybe I should take my own advice: when I assistant-taught a writing course this summer, I had the students all practice "active listening" when their classmates were sharing. They were welcome to write, but had to share one comment of praise and one constructive suggestion about their classmates' writing. They told me afterwards that the best feedback they got was from their classmates during "active listening" times, and that becoming better listeners made them better writers. (Score!) I think listening is something we don't focus on enough. It's a muscle we need to train.