By Donna Shea & Nadine Briggs
I (Donna) just finished reading the book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth. This quote she used from a parent stuck with me enough to email it to myself, so I am sharing it with you:
“Jackie remembers that when Jeff decided to build an infinity cube, essentially a motorized set of mirrors that reflect one another’s images back and forth ad infinitum, she was sitting on the sidewalk with a friend.” Jeff comes up to us and is telling us all the science behind it, and I listen and nod my head and ask a question every once in a while. After he walked away, my friend asked if I understood everything. And I said, “It’s not important that I understand everything. It’s important that I listen.”
I have conversations on a daily basis with kids about things and topics I don’t understand. Minecraft is the first thing that comes to mind. I tell the kids that I most certainly support Minecraft, but I don’t speak it. But I listen to opinions on creative versus survival modes and all of the other topics that excite and interest the young people I see each week. We have mentioned in a past blog the 2 x 10 strategy of spending 2 minutes listening to a child for 10 days in a row and talking about anything that the child wants to talk about. I was reminded of it again as I presented a workshop this week. Here is the full article.
Kids are typically in the position of needing to be the listener and being told what to do. Imagine how good it must feel to have the chance to have a turn to be listened to.
