“It’s the first time I’ve ever been asked that, honestly.”
As I sat to analyze all my mixed-methods data from my eventual dissertation, I kept thinking about the various ways teachers of color from across New York City indicated that no one listened to them. I believed it from the younger teachers. School systems like to elevate younger teachers until they burn them out. Once they want to make teaching into a career, the system and its actors start to turn on them. I also believed it from the veteran teachers. Our school systems are conservative in their approach to systemic change. Thus, as many reforms as we’ve seen to schools, they often feel like iterations of prior initiatives. Veteran teachers know this and either adjust or move on. Collectively, these were some of the most energetic and dedicated professionals I’ve ever met and known.
But I kept thinking about the idea of listening and what it means for the listener. In this case, me. And I have you to thank. Let me explain.
How did listening this often and this intentionally change my composition? I spent hours and days listening, re-transcribing, and making notes about them. I isolated my own experiences (to the best of my ability) to elevate theirs. Within them, they contained equal parts hope and exasperation with the current ways we teach children. It’s easy to say “Well, teacher, then teach it your way.” From what I hear, the teachers who can, do. It’s harder to see the levels of bureaucracy teachers need to fight to teach from that body of knowledge and help from there.
People love to pontificate about the state of public education, but the feedback loop often stops at the school building’s door.
But you may be wondering “What is it about listening that people don’t get?” Currently, people say they’re doing a lot of listening. Upon arriving to their posts, new CEOs go on a listening tour and ask carefully curated questions. Opinion columnists start their articles with something they overheard at some coffee shop or their workplace. People in power learn to say “I hear you” in response to righteously angry people, usually to those with way less power.
The trouble with “listening” in these examples is that, time and again, we see how “listening” doesn’t seem to change the listener in power in action or policy. Or, at least, doesn’t seem to affect the listener’s trajectory in any way.
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