I Can't Hear You....Louder!!!!!

I Can’t Hear You……Louder!!!!!

I will be honest the TV show “A Different World” that was created by Bill Cosby in 1994 has always had a special place in my heart. One of my favorite episodes of the series was entitled “A Word in Edgewise (1991). This episode featured a famous well know deaf actor named CJ Jones. The premise of the show was to help introduce a children’s program founded by “Walter Oaks” (Sinbad) to the world of sign langue. Like many people who don’t know a deaf person personally, many don’t know how you communicate to people through signs. CJ helped the kids to get a better understanding and showed them the importance of paying attention to someone who is using signs to understand what they are trying to convey. My favorite part is when CJ Bebops and signs a song to the kids which is translated into a rap song by “Matthew” (Andrew Lowery). The kids and college students love the song just the same. Thinking about this episode makes me understand why listening is so important. Just like sign langue if you don’t pay attention you can miss some important, interesting, and vital information. I for one don’t consider myself a good listener. This causes me to not to think before I speak, listening to just parts of what someone is saying because I’m forming an answer in my head, and sadly it can seem to some people that I don’t care what they are saying. Though it’s not true, listening is something I’m trying to get better at but it’s a challenge. This week I was able to read a book that is helping me make the steps to become a better listener. The book is called “Listening Effectively” by Dr. John Kline. Though this book focuses on the military it can teach everyone about effective listening.  I found this book on https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/AUPress/Books/. The air university has a press that publish books that can help an inform people in many ways. This book opened my mind up to many things and showed me how I could be a better listener and perhaps a better friend. The first chapter in the book is entitled “The Need for Better Listening.” This chapter spells it out for you and is a great introduction to Kline’s book.  The first thing that perked my interest in this book when Kline states “Listening is the neglected communication skill. Research shows that most people spend seven of every 10 minutes we are awake in some form of communication activity. Wow! That is amazing who knew we spent that much time communicating with people. Knowing the facts showed me that I must get better with my skills because we spend most of the time communicating with each other. Kline was right poor listening is costly in even the most routine staff communication and office and office operations. You must have good listening skills when you are out with friends, visiting a museum, learning a new skill, or hearing the spoken world. We must do better! The second chapter is entitled “Fallacies about Listening” First you might be questions; What is a fallacy? Well to sum it up a fallacy is a mistaken belief, especially one based on an unsound argument. There are seven fallacies that Kline list in his book. Fallacy number one states Listening is Not my Problem. The second one is “Listening and Hearing are the Same.” The third one is “Good Readers Are Good Listeners.” The fourth one is “Smarter People Are Better Listeners.” The fifth one is Listening Improves with Age.” Finally, the sixth one states “Listening Sills Are Difficult to Learn.” You will have to read the book to get into more information, but I will go into a little detail about two of the fallacies. The first one I will discuss is Fallacy #3: Good Readers Are Good Listeners.” Earlier I stated that I am not a good listener but I consider myself a great reader. I mean hey, my first-grade teacher told my mom I couldn’t hold a pencil correctly but that I could read my butt off (LOL). The book suggests “That when we a document, visual cues-margins, illustrations. punctuation become factors/ Pm the other hand, when we listen, the speaker’s vocal emphasis, reading style, pauses, and the like influence our understanding”. You can see by this statement that big difference from process information form the written word and processing if from the spoken word. The second fallacy I’m going to talk about is Fallacy #5 Listening Improves with Age.” If this isn’t one of the biggest lies I have ever heard of. No, I’m not old I’m 36 but I believe age has made my listening skills worst. As Kline states in his book. “Certainly, the capacity or ability to listen and attach appropriate meaning to messages improves with age and experience at least in the early years and at least to some point. But although listening ability increases, listening performance generally declines at some point. But this doesn’t have to be the case. The discrepancy between listening ability and listening performance is often due to our having learned bad listening habits.” One of the most important chapters in this book is chapter 5 “How to Be an Effective Listener. I’m taking the concepts Kline is talking about in book and applying them to real life. The 3 most important suggestions the books lists are suggestions that Kline list are the basics to get improve your listening skills.

1. What you think about listening.
2. What you feel about listening.
3. What you do about listening.

I could go on and on about this book. Kline hit’s the nail on the head and shows people what listening is all about. I must concrete, think before speaking, and sometimes say nothing at all. Sometimes silence can be the answer when listening to someone. People owe it to themselves and others to better listeners. Just think of the problems and situations that could have not happen if people just listened.

 

I Can Hear You….

 

Destini