“music beneath the words . . .”: Teaching as . . . listening Inspired by Mary Rose O’Reilley’s observation, “One can, I think, listen someone into existence . . .” (Radical Presence 1998) and prodded by Don Finkel’s Teaching With Your Mouth Shut (2000), I explore teaching as listening. Successive slides with words of others about learning and listening, about hearing ourselves and others, about voice and silence form a collage of teaching as listening. On Saskatchewan evening `living skies’ as canvases, these words tell a paradox of teaching as listening: students find their voices when we teachers listen to them attentively, expectantly, appreciatively. Not for teachers’ words, but for their own voices. Through listening as a way of teaching, we can, I think, ‘listen students, ourselves and the world together.’

“music beneath the words . . .”: Teaching as . . . listening “music beneath the words . . .” is William Perry’s (1970) phrase. Fittingly, since his colleagues and students celebrated Perry’s gift of the “ability to be so fully present, to hear them so well,” while noting with gentle irony that he “wore a hearing aid in each ear” (Memorial Minute, Harvard Gazette May 27, 1999).  “I don’t listen to students’ problems,” Bill Perry said. “I listen to their courage.” He heard “music beneath the words” students spoke. He enabled students to hear that music, too. As their voices. In these words of others in evening skies, I hope we can hear a call to listening to our students and ourselves. I hope we dance to the music we are as students too . . . listening with others.   John Thompson June 2011

“music beneath the words . . .” — William Perry

“One can, I think, listen someone into existence . . .” — Mary Rose O’Reilley

— Donald Finkel “The existence of the parable as a teaching device presumes that certain things can be learned only by figuring them out for yourself. So the teacher should teach with his mouth shut.”

“What do you mean, ‘How can I stand listening all day to students’ problems?’ I don't listen to their problems; I listen to their courage.” — William Perry

— Mark Weisberg “To encourage writers to listen to themselves, it’s helpful to stop insisting that they listen to you telling them about themselves. And if their professor was listening and taking them seriously, maybe they could too.”

- Alice Duer Miller “listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous human interest in what is being told us.”

a paradox: students find their voices when we teachers listen to them attentively, expectantly, appreciatively. listen not for teachers’ words, but for students’ voices

“I just go in and tell students what they must know.” “I try to direct students where to make connections.” “We try to listen to each other and to hear how we are constructing our knowing.” “I try to show students how knowing is informed by frameworks.” Sherman et al. 1987. “The Quest for Excellence in University Teaching.” Journal of Higher Education 48(1)

“Then, suddenly, you begin to hear not only what people are saying, but what they are trying to say, and you sense the whole truth about them. And you sense existence, not piecemeal, not this object and that, but as a translucent whole.” ─Brenda Ueland Teaching is listening in interaction – content, contexts, relationships – communicating power of ideas to engage our lives. Knowing involves interpretation, thinking, leads to ethical action. Students seek questions. Knowing is collaboratively constructed responses of students and teacher to questions.

“We try to listen to each other and hear how we are constructing our knowing.”

Visual metaphors encourage standing at a distance to get a proper view . . . Unlike the eye, the ear requires closeness between subject and object. Unlike seeing, speaking and listening suggest dialogue and interaction. — Women’s Ways of Knowing

Through listening as a way of teaching, we can, I think, ‘listen students, ourselves and the world together.’

"Listening looks easy, but it's not simple. Every head is a world." — Cuban Proverb

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” — Robert McCloskey

“Sometimes more silence is useful.” — The Dalai Lama

— Rachel Naomi Remen “In the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone. Eventually you may be able to hear, in everyone and beyond everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you.”

“Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.” — Karl Menninger

— Jimi Hendrix

“To know who you are, it helps to be able to listen to your self. I think that’s a skill. So I try to model listening and to create spaces that make listening possible by remaining silent, by trying to listen . . . by encouraging students to listen to each other.” — Mark Weisberg

“We adopted the metaphor of voice and silence as our own. It links . . . the story of women’s ways of knowing and the long journey they must take if they are to put the knower back into the known and claim the power of their own minds and voices.” — Women’s Ways of Knowing

Vocation does not come from wilfulness. It comes from listening. That insight is hidden in the word vocation itself, rooted in the Latin for “voice.” It means a calling that I hear. - Parker Palmer

When we engage in ‘teaching as listening,’ we can, I think, make space for students to hear their music.

“I need to listen for the song beneath the words. I realize I might have listened more musically and allowed for more silence.” - Mature Student (Parks 2005)

— Mark Weisberg “I’ve come to understand being silent in class as one way to help fulfill what Wayne Booth suggests is every teacher’s obligation: helping students become responsible for their own meanings (The Vocation of a Teacher.)”

“You listen not only for what someone knows, but for what he or she is. Generative listening is the art of developing deeper silences in yourself, so you can . . . hear beneath the words to their meaning.” — Peter Senge

“Then, suddenly, you begin to hear not only what people are saying but what they are trying to say and you sense the whole truth about them. And you sense existence, not piecemeal, not this object and that, but as a translucent whole.” — Brenda Ueland

“One can, I think, listen someone into existence . . .” Good teachers listen this way, as do terrific grandfathers and similar heroes of the spirit.” “. . . encourage a stronger self to emerge or a new talent to flourish. — Mary Rose O’Reilley

Thanks To Kim West and Jaymie Koroluk whose conversations brought these reflections to the STM Gallery and the “beholding” of those who do what Parker Palmer calls so simply “good teaching” To Linda Stark, STM Gallery Curator, who made the right space of quiet conversation for this exhibit, and to Donna Brockmeyer, STM Librarian, for hospitality To the writers whose words on listening grace skies here, encouraging and nudging me to mindful presence in teaching as listening To Patty, Montessori teacher, who hears children, our sons, and me, into life To From My Backyard Photos for portraits of Saskatchewan evening skies To you taking time to join us to listen to ourselves and each other . . .

References Mary F. Belenky, Blythe M. Clinchy, Nancy R. Goldberger, and Jill M. Tarule. 1986. Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind. Basic Books. Wayne C. Booth 1988. The Vocation of a Teacher. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Donald L. Finkel. 2000. Teaching With Your Mouth Shut. Boynton/Cook Publishers. Mary Rose O’Reilley 1998. Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice. Boynton/Cook Publishers. Parker J. Palmer. 1999. Let Your Life Speak. Jossey-Bass. Parker J. Palmer and Arthur Zajonc, with Megan Scribner. 2010. The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal. Transforming the Academy through Collegial Conversations. Jossey-Bass.

References Sharon Daloz Parks. 2000. Big Questions, Worthy Dreams. Jossey-Bass. Sharon Daloz Parks. 2005. ``Listening to the Music Beneath the Words: The Practice of Presence.`` pp. 99-119 in Leadership Can Be Taught. Harvard Business Press. William G. Perry Jr. 1970 (1998). Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years: A Schema. Holt, Reinhart & Winston. William G. Perry Jr. 1988. “Different Worlds in the Same Classroom.” Pp. 145-161 in Improving Learning: New Perspectives, edited by Paul Ramsden. Kegan Page Ltd. Thomas M. Sherman, L. P. Armistead, Forest Fowler, M.A. Barksdale, Glen Reif. 1987. “The Quest for Excellence in University Teaching.” The Journal of Higher Education 48(1): 66-84. Barbara Ueland. 1992. “Tell Me More.” Utne Reader 54 (11/12). Mark Weisberg. 1999. “Discerning the Gift.” Change May/June:29-37.

"Wisdom is the reward for a lifetime of listening . . . when you'd have preferred to talk." — D.J. Kaufman

“music beneath the words . . .”: Teaching as . . . listening