“You can learn something new every day …if you listen”? I saw this in a kindergarten classroom and I thought about what it was saying. That doesn’t sound true to me. I mean, you can certainly learn something new every day, but I don’t know that “listening” necessarily has anything to do with it. You … Read more
I posted last week about the overuse of the word “listen” to mean “obey” in adult/child relationships — i.e., “you’re not listening to me” when what the adult really means is “you’re not complying with what I told you”, not, “your ears are not processing the language I’m saying.” A lot of people in the … Read more
Once you start paying attention to how often adults say “listen” to euphemistically mean “obey”, it’s hard to get it out of your head. I think many of the adults I know are trying very hard to be gentle and respectful with kids, and they would feel wildly uncomfortable saying the exact same sentences if … Read more