A civil state of mind

July 25th, 2016

Teenagers love to talk.  Parents of teenagers may raise a skeptical eyebrow at this statement, but when the opportunity comes for my students to talk, they usually snatch it with both hands, if only for the reason that they aren’t being forced to write an essay.  Since the inception of Common Core, there has been a huge movement towards more listening and speaking in class.  This goes by different names, but many of us use the term “academic conversations”.  

Now this is not merely a case of putting students in groups and directing them to talk to each other.  Without proper guidance, within seconds, they will most likely have got off topic and started interrupting each other.  Some will not be listening properly; others may not even be speaking at all.  Another problem can be a major imbalance among students when it comes to participation in these discussions.  Without strict rules, conversations will be dominated by a select few (usually the most confident and most opinionated), and many students will feel that they are unable to express their ideas.    

The point is that students need to be trained to have productive academic conversations.  Teachers need to give them the language and establish the parameters for using that language.  Civil language, if you like.  And this can only be achieved by creating a classroom culture of respect and safety.  

Yet even as I try to foster this among my students, I am very aware that we adults, especially in recent months, seem unable to do this.  Anyone who has had their discussion thread hijacked by someone who either didn't read properly or who merely has an axe to grind, and anyone who has - mentally or physically - face-palmed out of frustration at seeing yet another opinionated post from a family member will know what I am talking about.  

Living in our social media echo chambers, we are increasingly exposed to precisely the kind of disrespectful and blinkered verbosity - the kind that makes the most noise and seeks to garner the most attention - that as a teacher I would not tolerate from my students.  Why, then, do I tolerate and even secretly (heck, even openly sometimes) enjoy it in my life?  

Of course, much of this has to do with the dynamics of social media, which gives us the freedom to say whatever we want without needing to wait around for a response, but I feel that a lot of it is a condition of the heart, and the reality is that we usually just don’t pay attention to what others have to say.

One of the things I tell my students at the start of each classroom discussion is that instead of trying to be interesting, they should try to be interested.  And that is at the heart of the Civil Language Project.  When we are genuinely interested in what others have to say, our horizons are broadened and we open ourselves to new and different perspectives.  

In short: when we are interested, we learn.  

Young people get a bad rap these days, but most of the teenagers I come into contact with are eager to learn.  Few adults seem to be, and it’s evident at every level of our society, from the struggling marriage to the electorate who don’t reflect on history.

A confession: I am one of those adults.  Trying to show myself as interesting - no, fascinating - to others is one of my many weaknesses.  I like to think that I have a lot of interesting things to say and I love it when people are listening to me.  But, as my wife well knows, I am not very good at reciprocating that attentiveness and listening to others.  

So, fully aware of the irony and hypocrisy inherent both in my admission and in writing a blog, I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where we showed genuine interest in others’ ideas.  Matthew 12 tells us that “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks”.  Civil language, therefore, must come from a civil state of mind.

On the last day of the 2015-2016 school year, I invited two college professors to sit in on and participate in my 10th grade class’s final Socratic seminar.  At the end of over an hour of generally respectful and stimulating discussion of the year’s literature, I asked my guests to share with the class what they most want to see in their own students.  What they said stunned me.  One said “openness” and the other said “humility”.  

Openness and humility.

It makes perfect sense.  A student who comes to class with an open mind and the knowledge that his knowledge is incomplete is ready to succeed in all aspects of the class, particularly in class discussion, and I think the same can be said of our attempts to introduce more civil discourse into our spheres of influence.  Having successful, meaningful, and - most importantly - consensus-building conversations with our friends, family members, and co-workers requires us to shed all notions of superiority and to listen with humble hearts and open minds.  

If we expect it of our students and young people, we should surely expect it of ourselves.  Where can you show openness and humility in your future interactions with others?