Listening is stretching beyond ourselves and another, and if we were to listen to printed words on paper as non-verbal cues of communication, it too emits lower frequencies that moves us, beyond the I, towards new modes of knowledge.
Good listening skills can change minds, improve relationships and help build communities. Listening is also a big focus of the work of Nicole Furlonge, professor and director of the Klingenstein Center, Teachers College Columbia University.
Last spring, we were fortunate to catch up with Furlonge, who is an astute practitioner and proponent of what she calls âlistening leadership,â positioning listening as an essential interpretive and civic act that can lead to deeper engagement with others.
What started as an inquiry into literature, via the book âRace Sounds: The Art of Listening in African American Literature,â has become a teaching and training imperative for her as she works with everyone from teachers to school leaders, future doctors to museum curators. Her next book, tentatively titled âThe Third Ear: How Listening Transforms Teaching and Learning,â is due in 2022.