Like I said, no argument here. Effective use and comprehension of language is essential to nearly every aspect of personal and professional life - and, at least according to some metrics, Americans do not do it particularly well. The Washington Post reported that, in 2014, "19 percent of adults cannot read a newspaper, much less complete a job application." Even if you do not trust these data, or worry (like I do) that we often measure the wrong things, anecdotal evidence of many Americans' futility with the use and comprehension of language abounds. Watch any unscripted television programming and tell me I am wrong. I'm waiting...
The problem, as I see it, is not so much that literacy is not vitally important to civil society. On the contrary, I think the definition of literacy is not nearly broad enough. Literacy is most often defined, somewhat narrowly, as reading and writing. I would like to add two more pieces to the puzzle: speaking and listening. These skills are not emphasized in our current system - particularly listening. Not surprisingly, that is the skill we fail at most consistently.
But has this always been the standard in formal education? Frankly, no. Derek R. Sherman, a graduate student at Purdue University, argues that the liberal education of Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero, and Qunitilian emphasized all four rhetorical skills. "Historically, students learned to listen because the orality of the culture demanded it," he writes. "In more oratory-based cultures, speaking and listening took precedence, as writing and reading were difficult because of the lack of printed texts." The primary function of education was to develop critical thinking. The idea was that a citizenry that had the ability to listen to the spoken word and divine both its merits and fallacies was seen as essential to a functional democracy. As recently as the 19th century, Thomas Jefferson also famously held public education as a requisite of self-government.
Somewhere along the way, literacy began to be defined more narrowly as merely reading and writing - crucial skills, to be sure, but not the whole package. Sure, speaking is given some focus in elective classes and when students give presentations, but listening is all but ignored. As Sherman writes:
Contemporary education, however, has emphasized reading, writing, and speaking at the expense of listening, or information processing. Listening has been deemed a passive and unteachable skill, and many equate hearing to listening when hearing is only one component of listening. Language theorists counter this passive assumption and state that all four rhetorical acts are necessary for competent communication.
Sherman astutely contrasts “hearing” and “listening,” identifying the former as a mere component of the latter. Ask anyone who “listens” to background music while studying, television while sleeping, or many teachers lecture. They certainly “hear” what is happening, but are not processing any of the sounds beyond the most basic level.
Sherman’s best point, though, is that literacy, including listening, is taught as a discipline in and of itself, rather than skills built and developed in any and all disciplines.
Another concerning practice is the teaching of reading, writing, and speaking in isolation—that is, speaking is taught in communication; writing, in composition; and reading, in literature. Transfer studies counter this pedagogical practice, too, because students must see connections between the skills they use and their real-life contexts. By neglecting listening and teaching reading, writing, and speaking independently, teachers leave their students hardpressed to develop, communicate, and transfer their knowledge.
In other words, we are doing our students a disservice by “teaching” them to read and write. According to Sherman (and me), all four rhetorical skills should be intentionally exercised and reinforced in each discipline.
People like to talk. In fact, it often seems like the less expertise someone has, the greater their need to be heard. Not surprisingly, one’s listening skills typically correlate to their speaking ability. In a 2017 study, Sezgin Demir of Firat University in Turkey found that self-efficacy regarding listening skills is a strong predictor of one’s speaking skills.
Mindfulness has become a ubiquitous buzzword in education, but, as with any fad, it has usefulness in some circumstances. Deep listening may be one of those instances. Renea Frey of Xavier University found that “deep listening, empathy, NVC (non-violent communication), and mindfulness as invention practices positively affected the ethical stance, rhetorical strategies, and audience awareness” of the subjects in a 2017 study.
Students came away with rhetorical skills that were grounded in ethics and compassion, as well as tools that could be used in other situations where greater understanding was needed in order to enact mutually beneficial solutions or connect with diverse audiences. While more research is certainly needed, instructors of writing and rhetoric should consider adopting pedagogies rooted in embodied, mindful awareness. These practices can lead to deeper listening, nuanced understanding, and more ethically rooted rhetorical stances for the students we hope to inspire toward civically engaged arguments.
Regular readers of this blog will recognize Frey’s findings as music to my ears. “Nuanced understanding,” “ethically rooted rhetorical stances,” and “civically engaged arguments” are precisely what are needed in a time of lethal mass partisanship.
As riots and unrest envelope our nation, I can not help thinking that deep listening is an essential ingredient of any solution to our social malaise. As Frey writes:
Given the global interconnectedness of our contemporary world and the potential dire consequences for conflict and violence, the way rhetorical invention is approached needs to change. As global crises affect wider ranges of people, new invention techniques should be explored to create arguments based in compassion and connection, rather than competition and domination. By giving students concrete invention skills that promote deep listening, mindfulness, and empathy, they can become more compassionate and engaged rhetors as they learn to connect purpose and audience across difference. These skills, rooted in the exigencies of an interdependent yet endangered world, may prepare our future citizens with the rhetorical means necessary to create ethical arguments based on inclusion, compassion, and safety, promoting a future where rhetors deeply listen before they speak.
References
Demir, S. (2017). An Evaluation of Oral Language: The Relationship between Listening, Speaking and Self-efficacy. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 5(9), 1457-1467.
Frey, R. (2017-18). Rhetorics of Reflection: Revisiting Listening Rhetoric through Mindfulness, Empathy, and Nonviolent Communication. Journal for the Association for Expanded Perspectives on Learning, 23, 92-104.
Sherman, D. R. (2017). A Trivium-Based Heuristic: Reemphasizing Listening in the General Education Curriculum. The Journal of General Education, 66(3-4), 192-216.
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