How Are We Listening?

Specific quotes or phrases can become a talisman for our work, such as “Listening is the premise of every learning relationship” – Carlina Rinaldi (2006). I was reminded of this phrase again a few days ago when a colleague shared with me that she didn’t have much time for the vital work in her classroom. She had other pressing concerns on her time, such as completing charts and paperwork, recording standards-based learning assessments, and documenting with online tools. She shared that she felt so discouraged. When I asked her how others felt, she shared that everyone in her program felt that way, but there didn’t seem to be a way to change what was happening.

Her story made me reflect on how we engage in the classroom without listening. Have our relationships with each other and the children become only an exchange of facts and figures? 

In thinking about how we get back to the authentic classroom experience, I think about how to bring back sustained and natural engagement when we are in the middle of “being with children.” Taking time to be in the classroom, experiencing the timelessness of being fully engaged without a mental “to do” list running through our brain. We have become fearful of failure in the early childhood classroom. We are held captive by accountability. 

It is time to take back the sacred space of early childhood to move away from the redundant, surface-level, irrelevant tasks that keep us from authentically and profoundly engaging with children. It is time to get back to natural inquiry – led by the children’s interests, ideas, and learning based on the layering of ideas that only reach maturity when we look back and see what has emerged.

What competes with your desire to “listen to children”?