Listening, Even When It’s Hard to Hear: Guest Speaker Offers Insight into Better Connections to Build Up Our Community

By Jillian Daley

We’ve all heard the saying that we have one mouth to speak with, but two ears to listen. But we may not have thought about how much the rest of our face is saying with nonverbal cues or about our own assumptions about another person.

We can change the course of a conversation with a nod, a grimace, a smile — and what we mean with those nonverbal cues can vary by our life experiences and our identities, our gender, race, age, sexual orientation, etc. Yet conversations can also equal connection. That’s if we can hold off on assumptions based on past experience and realize that another person’s reactions may differ from our own. 

Fostering these connections to keep growing a welcoming campus atmosphere for everyone was the message during North Marion’s All-Staff Breakfast and Staff Workshop on Wednesday. During author and podcaster Bill de la Cruz’s workshop, “Making the World a More Humane Place One Conversation at a Time,” he invited the North Marion staff to connect with each other as individuals and not as part of a larger group, and offered some tools to make it easier. In short, change actually starts between your ears.

“I can’t change my behavior unless I change my mindset,” de la Cruz said.

Yet how can we change? How can we see and know others without a layer of our own assumptions? That’s the hard part. He helped people open up to others by going through exercises such as one on active listening. One person gave their full attention to one other person for two minutes while shutting off all conversation “hijacking” attempts, such as nodding and smiling. De la Cruz called this an extreme version of active listening, meant to get the point across that we shouldn’t “judge, blame, or shame” when nurturing relationships, as we can do when we insert our own opinion with a smile or grimace.

This is only the beginning. High School Teacher Sherie Moran said that we have all fallen into a rigid mindset at times, and the best way to break free of it is to practice connecting.

“The more of these kinds of things we do, the more open we are,” Moran said.

De la Cruz suggested using respectful language when we don’t agree. 

But what does that look like? Staff were encouraged to break into small groups and explore their own biases, even just against left-handed people or bad drivers.

The exercise demonstrated that the North Marion staff can listen without our own biases and respond respectfully. If staff can do this, this behavior will serve as a positive example to the students. Helping ourselves is great, but helping students learn is, of course, the key to everything North Marion is.

“If you want them to change their behaviors, we have to change ours,” de la Cruz said.

For de la Cruz, that means meeting someone with his heart and listening to what they say with two ears, no mouth, and no fear of his own vulnerability.

That kind of listening takes bravery. Superintendent Ginger Redlinger emphasized that when she shared her appreciation for him and everyone who’d attended the training.

“There aren’t enough thank-yous from us for the courageous work you have done,” Redlinger told him and the rest of the crowd. “It’s a crazy world we live in now, and we have an opportunity to change it, and I know we have the right people in the room to do it.”

To share stories on the North Marion School District, email Communications Specialist Jillian Daley at jillian.daley@nmarion.k12.or.us.