Listening in the Middle of Teaching
Launch library · evergreen read
Good teaching is often described in terms of explaining clearly, but a less discussed half of the craft is listening closely enough to notice exactly where a student's understanding has quietly gone astray, rather than simply repeating the same explanation more loudly or more slowly than before.
A teacher who listens well can hear the specific misunderstanding hiding inside a wrong answer, and address that precise gap directly, instead of delivering a generic correction that the student has likely already heard and failed to absorb several times before.
This kind of listening takes patience that a packed lesson plan does not always allow for, but it tends to produce far more durable learning than simply moving on to the next topic on schedule, regardless of whether the room has actually understood the last one.
This kind of attentive teaching also builds trust over time, as students come to sense that their confusion will be genuinely engaged with rather than brushed past, which tends to make them more willing to admit confusion honestly in the first place.