Learn to Listen: #cyberPD

You gotta learn to listen, listen to learn
You gotta learn to listen, before you get burned
Learn to listen, listen to learn
You gotta learn to listen, before you get burned

                        -The Ramones

I am sure that when Patrick Allen was going through the tedious revision process is writing Conferring: The Keystone of Reader's Workshop his editors at Stenhouse wouldn't let him quote The Ramones.  They were probably concerns that elementary teachers would not be familiar with the seminal punk rockers.  And if we know anything about writing, we know that hitting your audience is key.  So, Patrick, the quote above is for you.

Learn to Listen by the Ramones is from their 1989 album Brain Drain.  I am not a huge Ramones fan (I think buried in a box in the basement I may have one vinyl album).  But I was in college in the early 1990s, plenty of my friends had Brain Drain and I would sing (scream) along at the top of my lungs to Learn to Listen.  I seriously doubt I actually listened to the meaning of the song.  I was a kid and anything blaring on a stereo that hinted of antiestablishment or counterculture was fine with me.

The point I am finally getting to is that learning to listen when you are conferring with students is a huge, and I mean huge with a capital H-U-G-E, piece to the puzzle.  I have probably spent hundreds of hours with students over the years not really listening to them, but just pushing a conference in the direction I felt it should go.  Over the last few years, I have tried to become better at letting the student's voice come through more often in a conference and it is not easy, but I am getting better (I think).  In part 2 of Conferring we get to peek into Patrick's classroom a little more and I appreciated his thinking on how to make conferring with students richer by listening to them more.  We gotta to learn to listen before we get burned.

There are many parts of chapters 4 and 5 that I will come back to frequently.  Some of these ideas are:

1) A record keeping system that has a little more focus.  I may try Patrick's R.I.P. model, but I am not sure it will work for me.  One take away from his model is the goal setting piece.  I have to include this more deliberately with my system this year.  Which will probably be the 15th system in the last 15 years.  Last year I started using Evernote for my conference record keeping and I loved it.  One great thing about Evernote is that if you have an iPad or smartphone there is an app you can download that will sync with your Evernote account.  Last year in the classroom, I used my phone, an iPad and my laptop to take notes and record snippets of conferences.  Then,  like magic, I could access my conference notes and recordings whenever and wherever I had some form of internet access.  Scary.

2) Framing conferences for different reasons.  I really liked the idea of developing a conference routine that nurtures inquiry.  I may have done this inadvertently in the past, but I wonder how this would look if I thought about nurturing inquiry more often?  I am hopeful that looking at conferring through the lens of inquiry may help my students become much better at deeper reading and deeper thinking.  Many of the students I work with tend to think deeply already without much help from me.  However, there is a larger group of students that seem to have difficulty getting past just basic infromation or attitudes.

3) I will definitely go back to the pondering questions from this chapter often.  The question that struck the biggest chord with me was, "How would your students describe you as a listener?"  Have I ever thought about this question before?  If I have, I buried it to the deep corners of my brain.  I am a reflective teacher.  I tend to beat myself up a little too much when things don't work out the way I thought they would in the classroom.  This, "it's never good enough" attitude is deep-seated for me.  So now I get to wrestle with Patrick's taunt of, "Do your students think you are a good listener?"  Great.  I am not sure how I will accomplish this inquiry into my listening strengths and weaknesses, but hopefully it won't keep me up at night when the school year starts.  I already have enough sleep issues in August.

So, I gotta learn to listen, before I get burned.  I know that being able to slow down and truly listen to needs of my students may be the most important thing I do as a teacher.  I just have to make sure it stays at the top of "my what's important" list when I am planning a lesson, unit, scope and sequence, etc.  If I don't then I may miss some big things.

 

Thanks Jill, Cathy, and Laura for hosting this #cyberPD event.  Reading all the posts from last week added greatly to my thinking and reflecting about Patrick's book.  Hopefully my brain can handle this week's trip around the blogosphere.

Later,

Tony

Comments

[Karen Terlecky]

Great post! That listening piece was huge for me as well. Love the Ramones lyrics - perfect for this thinking. Again, I agree with you about goal setting - need to leave each conference with a goal or a plan. Finally, we need another time to chat so I can pick your brain about how you organized evernote as record keeping. As always, I learn o much from your perspective.

[Laura Komos]

Love your thoughts on becoming better listeners... and the Ramones song definitely helps! :) I think you will be an invaluable resource for those of us looking at Evernote as our tool of choice!! We'll definitely need to chat more about that!
~Laura :)

[Frazierde]

Tony~
Once again a great post, funny and thought provoking all at the same time. I agree with so many points in your post! I think Donald Grave said it well when he said, "Listening to children is more a deliberate act than a natural one." Listening to a child takes concentration and focus. The classroom is so demanding really listening is a HUGE challenge at times. I need to work on deliberate listening, it's important!

[Shelley Carter]

I love your post although I missed out on the Ramones (I was preoccupied with a new baby during most of 1989!). I have problems every year with losing my voice. Perhaps as I refine my conferring skills I will solve that problem as well!

I can't wait to see if Evernote will help me with my record keeping system. I think it has great possibilities.

[Cathy Mere]

Tony,
I am joining the chorus of followers requesting the Evernote post. I like the idea of being able to record, capture images, tag, and sort student information, but I wonder if I will quickly be able to view my notes from previous conversations quickly. I really like being able to connect conversations over time.

Laughed over the Ramones. Hilarious image of you shouting lyrics in a dorm hall. I suppose my closest brush with punk music was The Clash, Adam Ant in the 80s...the dawn of the punk music revolution. LOL. Picture me shouting lyrics of Adam Ant's music from the balcony at the Palace. Scary, huh.

Cathy

[Chris Rayner]

Tony - It's so neat that you connected your ideas to music - you will never forget them! (I'm still giggling about Cathy's Adam Ant story. I had a punk phase of one summer. Time to add some tunes to my library.) :)

I think you've got three great goals, and I'm going to see if I can use my iPad/Evernote this fall like you, the note-taking rockstar. For me, less paper is better!

Thanks for sharing your ideas!
Chris

[Mandyrobek]

Tony, Now I have to find that song on my fancy phone and put it on my amazon cloud to get me in the mood for conferring or in general being a better person. I love your focus on listening and that too called to me. I also think being reminded to frame conferences with different positions is the key to differientating and stretching all children, meeting them where they are and excelling them forward. I feel Patrick's writing is easy to listen to and his examples are great reminders for us to revisit and see how to listen further. Thanks for sharing.

[Tony Keefer]

Mandy, Chris, Cathy, Shelley, Chris, Deb, Laura and Karen,
Thanks for dropping by and giving me feedback. Reading, reflecting through posting, then reading some more has really helped me to process Patrick's work at a deeper level. This has been much better than reading a book alone and writing notes in the margins.

Cathy, Adam Ant?!?!?! Did you have frighteningly large hair as well?

Thanks again,
Tony

[Julie Johnson]

Tony,
I always love reading your posts. I definitely need to check out The Ramones (I'm sure my husband has it recorded on one of his playlists). Like you, I found so much to think about in these 2 chapters. I especially zoomed in on how well Allen was able to slow down and listen to his students and let them make decisions. I appreciated when he said that he sometimes had to give more guidance to some of his students, which is so true in all of our classrooms. I am going to have to check out Evernote too. I find that I am doing more and more on my laptop. Hopefully I won't misplace my laptop like I so often do with my conferring notebook. :) Thanks! Julie

[Jill Fisch]

Tony,
I may be a little late to the party but I, too, would love to hear more about how you use Evernote with your conferring notes. Our school just got an ipad for each teacher and a cart of them for student use. I have downloaded the Evernote app but I haven't set up an account yet - cyberPD is using filling up all of my screen time these days. I hope to get in and play with it a little next week. So, any advice you have would be greatly appreciated. I am with Cathy in hoping that you will write an Evernote post. Thanks for bringing your perspective to our conferring conversation.
Jill

[Carwilc]

Tony- Between football and out of town company, I am super slow in responding to people's posts this week. Sorry! Was really struck by your line, "I have probably spent hundreds of hours with students over the years not really listening to them, but just pushing a conference in the direction I felt it should go." That could pretty much sum up my conferences in one sentence or less! This year I really do want to work at listening to kids and learning from them, as opposed to just talking AT them. Like several others, I would love to hear more about your use of the ipad. I'm seriously thinking about using my tax money to buy one and this would be one more reason to justify it, right? Looking forward to collaborating this year.
Carol

[Carwilc]

P.S. I'm already doing the not sleeping thinking about school thing and it's only mid JULY!

[Literacyzone.blogspot.com]

Tony,
I can really relate to your conferring in the past: not really listening, but pushing forward. This is an area I need to focus on as well because . . . it is THE component that makes conferring successful. I also was intrigued by the various framing of the conferences, but am hesitant. Like you, I am sure that I nurture inquiry without truly realizing it -- one of those natural things that happens when talking with a student. However, how much greater would my conferences be if I thoughtfully planned nurturing inquiry?

Great sharing and thanks for pushing me forward,
Michelle