Listening says to eveyrone that we are less concerned about who is right then about what is right and doing the right thing. Listening says that a student can have something to say, be a resource of ideas, a repository of principles, a fount of different perspectives and insight. When we listen, we try to understand, to see things and people differently. When we listen we close our autobiography and genuinely try to understand their biography, maybe lose our arrogance and find some humility in the process. Listening to a student lets a student feel that you are intent on what he or she has to say, that what he or she has to say is not insignificant, that you value him or her as a person, that you have all the time in the world for him or her.
Students yearn to be heard, to be understood.
They want and have to be able to explain themselves. Listening overcomes the distance of strangers.