Listening is a Radical Act
How I’ve Learned to Say Less
As a writing teacher, I listen.
I listen to students discover purpose in their writing. I listen to memories of broken bones and broken families. I listen to dreams of fishing in creeks or quiet nights by a fire. I listen to stories of failed aspirations, of empty houses, of losing friends. I listen to their love for their families and their fear of losing it all.
I listen to their questions. I listen to them ask if their details are vivid enough. I listen to them wonder how to deepen characterization. I listen to questions about how to punctuate dialogue or how to paragraph writing or how to use a semicolon. I listen to their worries: Am I doing this right? Do you get it? Is this good? I listen to their worries about sharing with their peers, about sharing with me, about their grades, their sleep, their stress, their hopes.
And I answer their questions. They listen as I tell them what I notice, what their writing makes me wonder, how to paragraph and punctuate dialogue. They listen as I struggle with words, so immersed in their story that I’m moved to tears; they listen as I reassure them: you are doing a good job, keep going, you can do this. They listen as I share my worries with them, too: grading them, my sleep, my stress, my hopes.
In the ten minutes I spend beside them talking about their writing, I remind them that they shouldn’t have their phones with them, that I won’t either, that no one is allowed to interrupt us to ask to go to the bathroom or get a drink. For ten minutes they and their words are the only thing that matter, my entire focus is on them.
Because in listening I carry some of what they carry. I hold it and notice and wonder, helping them make sense of their worlds. It tethers us for those minutes, and in truth, it tethers us beyond those minutes, too. I carry their words, their thoughts, their hopes, and the next time we talk, we start where we left off and progress.
As a writer teacher, I am both exhilarated with the connection and exhausted in the listening. It’s hard to listen. It’s hard to free my mind from my own worries to completely focus on them and their words. It takes energy I can’t manufacture on an empty tank. At times I need their burdens, my burdens, our burdens to be lifted — to breathe freely, to see the world as beautiful and simple and pure as it can be. Because eventually, I will need to carry them again as I hope they will help carry mine.
Perhaps it is in this reciprocation that I feel most human. Perhaps if I reread all that I wrote above with the words writing teacher replaced with the word human, I would see the truest value in our conversations. Perhaps the most radical thing we can do for each other is to be quiet and just listen. To notice. To wonder. To not need to be heard but to hear ourselves more clearly through others. To listen to each other.
As humans, we must continue to listen despite the weight of it. As humans, we must remember to listen when we feel alone, because in listening, we learn that we aren’t.
