If it really is true that 96% of people consider themselves to be good listeners, then I’m especially embarrassed to count myself in the failing five. Life is so busy, there are so many distractions and with every passing year the ageing adult brain feels less well equipped to keep up. We regularly bemoan our children for their inability to focus and then find ourselves plugged into social media or the football scores as a daughter describes her day or a spouse shares something that really matters.
And educational establishments have an extra responsibility to notice and be present because schools that don’t listen invariably end up producing teenagers with nothing to say. All schools will have councils and tutors and mentors but how many of them truly offer students a safe place to bring conflict or an opportunity to enact real change.
We’ve made a small but meaningful alteration to our behaviour policy this term by allowing students in the senior school to wear their hair down when they aren’t in lessons like science, cookery and PE. The change came at the end of a rigorous and highly sensitive debate raised by students themselves and then championed by the school council and our famous activism club Agents 4 Change.
They reminded us of our history, of our unique roots and of an ethos which encourages independence, creativity and inclusion. They shunned obstinacy and rebellion for diplomacy and discussion. They proceeded with a maturity and determination that could only be admired and a selfless passion which simply had to be heard. The rule change itself may have been quick to enact but the message students learned about the power of democracy will last far longer.
And best of all, making this change has led to unexpected side effects. There has been a marked rise in student awareness of uniform and an early spike in our acknowledgment of respectful behaviour. It turns out that compromise is not always weakness and that being open to change is the catalyst that turns listening into genuine hearing. Because when we are listened to we feel respected, we feel energised and we know we belong.
Better to be in the 4% then, and knowing you can do better. Than in the 96% and oblivious to your failings.