Afternoon Solutions, Part Three

Notes from Table III’s Afternoon Discussion

The question we will try to answer: Can we teach people to be good listeners?

How can we bring a greater awareness of listening? How do we listen intelligently? When you listen, you open yourself up to connection.

An important point is to give the opportunity of finding pleasure in listening.There is no right way to make students listen better; there are just too many variables.

•    The role of Emotion in communication
•    The sense of community and or identity in communication
•    The simple ability to understand
•    Bootstrap Learning Left Brain and Right Brain

As we become good listeners, we immerse ourselves in potentially difficult situations. We are immersing ourselves in the flood of information such as the Internet; the issues of filtering information.

You need a network of trusted people (community)

You need a number of communities and people depending on the needs to filter or to understand.

Can we educate the gut?

In the corporate world, people are given goals to achieve and apply their skills to achieve them (instead of being taught to do something).

So are you saying that there is a dichotomy between business people and educators.  In the Humanities, teachers educate students. In Business, students are “trained.”

The difference between educating and training is not just words.  ‘Train’ can be offensive: ‘train a dog’;
You ‘train’ to do the job (and not think or be encouraged to think).

Different fields seem to have their own signature to solve problems so it holds that schools would educate students differently.

Let’s play word association just answer right off the bat what this questions makes you think of…

What drives us to communicate?  What is it about communication that is meaningful?

•    We are looking for meaningful assistance.
•    Maybe ‘Authentic’ communication
•    What’s the value of honest communication?
•    Deliberate miscommunication

We are assuming that honest, open communication is valuable. Is that true?  If the purpose of communication is to gain advantage, why shouldn’t there be deliberate miscommunication?

That’s a Debatable Issue!