LISTEN.... LISTEN....

How many times I say that word to my students and to my kids and sometimes to other adults. I will recommend the chapter about listening to everyone. I could not agree more that such an important skill, so necessary during all our life, is never taught in any elementary school to our little ones. Who has not play the game of whispering a message in someone’s ear in a chain of people to find out that the first message has little to do with the message at the end of the chain? This game came to my mind while I was reading our textbook.

Reading about listening I could not help but wonder what will be the explanation for teenagers and their ‘selective hearing’, according to my doctor. They can hear but the way the process the information is very poor. Could it be that since in those years so many other activities and processes are happening in the brain that listening is not one of the priorities?

Once, I heard that the ones who listen will commit fewer mistakes and will get farther in their lives. If a person is an active listener and good in the different types of listening the act communication will be better.

I found it interesting that gender influences the listening style. I was not surprise though, when I read “Women are for Venus Men are from Mars”, that men are more gear towards information in clues while women are more oriented in relationships. We communicate in different parameters and our importance in messages seems not the same for men and women. Could be this pointing to one of the major problems in communication between genders?

Again, maybe understanding how others communicate, what is important for them and how they process information could help us to pay attention and listen in a manner that would improve our understandings of each other.