-
For Your Head: Expansive Listening to Help Build Community
In her 2018 book, Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators, Elena Aguilar provides a framework for educators to follow in order to build their emotional resilience so that they are better able to respond to the stress of their work loads. One chapter, her September chapter, is dedicated to building community, and one practice she encourages is "expansive listening". She places it in contrast to "constricted listening", which is driven by an agenda, often ready to offer a fix, sometimes manipulative or judgemental, usually impatient, and, too frequently, destructive to community.
Expansive listening (and generous questioning) is aimed at honing skills necessary for healthy social relationship central to building connection and community. This approach focuses our attention on a series of "channels" that open our minds and hearts to our colleagues. As you consider the information below for expansive listening, think about how it aligns with or differs from your own normal practices. (Clickfor a web document of the image below)
-
For Your Hands: Teach Students to Be Great Listeners
A sketchnote from MindShift.
