Listening to Others with Understanding and Empathy

Listening to Others with Understanding and Empathy is a Habit of Mind that encourages students to actively listen to each other and understand how another person feels. Students are encouraged to use this Habit of Mind when they are in and out of the school setting, and are encouraged to think about how others feel before they make decisions. When students are listening to what others think or how others feel, they are able to listen actively and with understanding of others. Students were explicitly taught this Habit of Mind, have practiced reinforcement activities with this Habit, and are continuously reminded of this Habit to continue developing this skill throughout the school year.

Students are encouraged to think about the different ways they can develop this Habit in the classroom, at home, and within their personal relationships. Bridges Public Charter School encourages communication between students and requires teachers to continue utilizing morning meeting throughout the upper-elementary grades. Due to this, my students were already familiar with the values of listening to others with understanding and empathy before they were explicitly taught the Habit.

Teachers are able to model the Habits of Mind in front of their students so that students are able to witness the benefits of each Habit of Mind. Some of the ways that I modeled Listening to Others with Understanding and Empathy for students is through conversation with my colleagues on our fourth grade team. There are nine team members, and even though I am the lead teacher for fourth grade ELA, I always make sure that I am modeling how to interact with my colleagues and listen with understanding an empathy. While this is something that is simply courteous to do, students are given a visual and verbal model of how to treat the people around them and listen to others thoughts and concerns before responding. My colleagues are also aware of how important it is to model these skills, and they work to ensure that students can also look to their language and behavior when modeling this Habit of Mind.

When students are listening to others with understanding and empathy, they are not only developing their communication skills, but developing their empathy for others. Students need to use these skills inside and outside of the school setting and can practice them inside the classroom with explicit instruction and reinforcement to ensure students are internalizing these values.

Students need to learn strategies to help them with their listening skills, specifically in regard to listening with understanding and empathy. To teach these, students are introduced to different ways that people can listen to others and to understand what it means to have empathy. Students have developed an understanding of what it means to listen and to have empathy, or to identify and understand how someone feels. If students are able to identify and understand these skills, they will be able to practice them and continue to develop and grow their skills in listening with understanding and empathy.

Below is a website that was used in the process of teaching and reinforcing this Habit of Mind. Students were presented with quotes that encouraged them to think about listening to others with understanding and empathy. These quotes were useful in providing context for students with figures they were familiar with. Connecting this Habit to students' background knowledge and allowing students to see the various connections to this Habit encouraged students to continue to invest in the values of Listening to Others with Understanding and Empathy.

Please click on the link below to access the full website and links (ASCD, n.d.).

Click here to access the full article, "Listening with Understanding and Empathy (ASCD, n.d.).

When students are listening with understanding and empathy in the classroom, they are able to have deeper conversations with other students and develop more effective methods of collaboration and understanding. When students are listening with empathy, they are able to take in the perspective of others and use those views to make decisions.

This Habit of Mind is especially useful during our discussion sessions when students take turns expressing their ideas and listening to the thoughts of others. Students use this Habit of Mind daily and we encourage students to continue to think about the effects of using this Habit successfully and what that can mean for students and their relationships.

Students use this Habit throughout the entire day, from our morning meeting sessions, to our small group instructional time. Students have been able to take the explicit teaching of the Habit and identify when a classmate (or themselves) is violating that established classroom value. Students are able to remind each other (and themselves) of the language and norms for the classroom when it comes to Listening to Others with Understanding and Empathy.

When teaching this Habit of Mind, students first discussed what it means to be a good listener. Students discussed ways to show that you are listening to someone, and what it would look like when you are not listening to someone. Students discussed how body language, eye contact, and asking questions are all ways to show that you are listening to someone when they speak to you.

Students also discussed what the word empathy meant, and how they could show empathy to others. One of the ideas had for showing empathy to others was noticing when someone was having a rough day. Students having the ability to understand the feelings of others when having conversation is an important way to continue growth in communication development.

Students also discussed the different distractions that they face when they are trying to listen to others with understanding and empathy. Students created a poster that listed the different distractions they encounter daily so they had a visual anchor chart to refer to when thinking about things they should avoid when listening.

Below is the presentation that students were shown when explicitly learning the Habit of Mind: Listening with Understanding and Empathy. The video that is presented below was embedded in the presentation for students to watch. The anchor chart co-created by students that listed all of the distracting things that could arise in a classroom setting that would inhibit them listening to someone with understanding and empathy is also shown below.

This Habit of Mind was reinforced with an activity that allowed students to share experiences that made them sad, happy, or excited, and a partner would have to listen without interruption. The students would then switch and take turns, with the listener becoming the speaker and the speaker becoming the listener. Students were eager to use the skills we previously discussed and put them into practice.

Students were put into groups of two or three and took timed turns to show each student what it looks and sounds like to use these skills in practice. Students were encouraged to use these skills at home with their families, as well as outside the classroom in their communities and with others outside of school. Students were then asked to write their thoughts about what Listening to Others with Understanding and Empathy looks like, sounds like, and feels like. Students were encouraged to use a combination of sentences, words, and drawings to complete the reinforcement activity.

Teachers and collaborative staff present for this exercise discussed how reinforcing this activity would look in the classroom. Students would be praised for demonstrating this Habit of Mind throughout the school year to solidify this value for students. Teachers and staff would also model this Habit and demonstrate to students how this Habit looks when others listen with understanding and empathy using each other as co-models.

Below are stills taken from Aarohi Life Education's (2020) "Listening to Others with Understanding and Empathy" Student Handouts. These handouts were used to help explicitly reinforce the lesson with students.

After students completed the reinforcement activity, students completed a reflections sheet that encouraged them to go back over their understanding of what listening to others with understanding and empathy is and to continue practicing empathizing with others. Students completed a worksheet that discussed the different ways that one would feel in various situations the following day to solidify the value from the lesson.

Students will continue to practice these skills in listening with understanding and empathy throughout the rest of the school year. Students will always have their anchor chart to refer to, and students will be reminded of this Habit of Mind during times when others are speaking and students should be listening with understanding and empathy. Students will see their teachers modeling the Habit, and students will be praised when they demonstrate the Habit in the classroom. This will ensure that students have continued to internalize Listening to Others with Understanding and Empathy and have demonstrated personal social-emotional growth.

Below are student reflections of the Habit of Mind: Listening to Others with Understanding and Empathy. Click play to listen to the reflections.

Students will continue to develop this Habit over time. With the onset of COVID-19, distance learning has created a new atmosphere where students have an even more important responsibility to use their listening skills with their classmates and with their families. Please listen to student reflections below in regard to how students are showing Listening to Others with Understanding and Empathy during this unprecedented time at home with their families.

Please click below to listen to a student reflection.

Students will continue to develop, utilize, and promote the Habit of Mind: Listening to Others with Understanding and Empathy. Students will continue to do this throughout the school year by practicing this skill with reinforcement strategies and modeling/encouragement from the teacher and other support staff.

Students have already demonstrated this Habit of Mind in several ways, through encouraging their classmates, engaging in learning (in the classroom and through distance learning platforms), and being able to identify how others might be feeling and respond appropriately. Students have truly internalized this Habit, and are continuing to demonstrate how they've internalized these values even through distance learning and COVID-19. Students will benefit from using the Habit of Mind throughout their entire lives and use it for continuous personal and academic growth.

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Aarohi Life Education. (2020, April 9). Retrieved from http://aarohilife.org/

ASCD. (2017, October 23). Habits of Mind: Listening with Understanding and Empathy. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/gFmE3cueJcc

ASCD. (n.d.) Listening with Understanding and Empathy.Retrieved from https://www.habitsofmindinstitute.org/resources/quotes/hom-quotes/3-listening-understanding-empathy/

Costa, A. L., & Kallick, B. (2009). Habits of mind across the curriculum: practical and creative strategies for teachers. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Teaching Tolerance. (n.d). What is Empathy?. Retrieved from https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/tolerance-lessons/what-is-empathy

Morgan Frye, M.Ed.

Master of Science in Education