Are you talking to me or listening to me?
Last night I was watching a great movie if you haven’t seen it yet – go get it and watch it, it’s called Freedom Writers. Beside the compelling story that it tells and the wonderful music score that it has (even though it’s mainly Rap – it is a refreshing Rap which has empowering messages), besides all that it demonstrates one of the main core qualities of Feminine Leadership – Listening.
In the movie the teacher, Hilary Swank, realizes that she has no clue about her students world and therefore instead of teaching by speaking to them and coming from the all knowing position of authority, she realizes that if she wants to help those kids learn, develop and grow she will need to do it in another way than the “old school methods”. She realized that she needs first of all to listen not only to the words they are saying but also to what they are NOT saying and most of all to what their heart is saying.
In the old way of schooling a teacher’s job was to educate the kids. This meant that the teacher knowledge was more significant and much more valuable than what the child had. That meant that in order to educate basically all the teacher had to do is to speak and the child will listen and do what they were told to do.
This is the command and control way, which is the old way.
In the movie we see how once she realizes that there is no way that those kids will ever truly listen to her she realized that in order for any communication to take place between them, she would first have to start listening to them, listening from her heart not from her head. Only once she was willing to truly listen to what they had to tell her could she find a way to create trust with them that allowed her to start teaching them.
Truly listening to another person demands a lot of courage as you will need to let go of your ideas about the subject and the topic. It demands attention, care and most of all respect to the other. All those qualities come together when you listen.
Usually when people thing about great communicators they think about people who could speak eloquently, persuasively and with confidence and wit. All this is true but it is only a limiting way of looking at communication. It is a one-way street. When it comes to human relationships the most important part of communication is probably the listening part. That would be the Feminine Leadership part in it. Maybe that’s why we have one mouth and two ears so we can listen better, which proves that the important part in the communication is listening.
Teachers are not usually great listeners. They are too busy and self important in trying to get across their message and deliver the material that they need to teach to actually remember that at the end if the day the most important person is not them, but the child.
What the teacher in this movie was realizing by listening to the kids was that her job was not really to educate them, but to show them the way how they can fulfill their potential. To find with them a way that they can start believing in themselves, start regaining faith in the human spirit and most of all that they will trust themselves and see how amazingly special each one of them is.
My favorite scene in the movie is when she brings them to realize that although they think they are different than one another, that although they feel that they are the only ones that suffered and paid price, they are basically all the same under all the exterior of the outside and that the fact that they look different or speak different languages they are all connected.
In order for that to take place she draws a line on the floor and each time she asks a question those that can relate to it need to stand on the line. This creates a meeting point for them, but it demands them to listen. Each time that they meet on the line they communicate to each other – we share the same experience. Again, this demands – listening. The result was a life changing moment for those kids.
This could not have been achieved even if she would have spoken logically and rational from her head. This could only have been achieved because they were willing to listen and share from their hearts.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well listening from your heart can save you those thousands words!
