Listen Up!

One day, as a way of getting my kindergartners interested in a lesson on listening, I told them about a meeting I recently attended. I explained that the counselors were supposed to be paying attention to a speaker who was teaching us about bullying. At first, I paid very good attention, doing all 7 of the important listening jobs. My brain was thinking, my nose was pointed at the speaker, my ears were listening, my mouth was quiet, my eyes were looking, my body was still, and my heart was caring about what the man was teaching us.  However, right before lunchtime I stopped listening because I was hungry.  I told the kindergarten class that I leaned over and started whispering to my friend about when we were getting out for lunch, where we were going to eat, and the fact that I wanted a big old cheeseburger and fries.  Pointing out to the children that you can't listen and talk at the same time, I said, "While I was talking to my friend, the speaker asked me what I thought about something he had said. Of course I didn't know what to say to him because I didn't even know what he'd asked me since I'd been talking to my friend about lunch.  So I looked at the speaker with wide eyes and had to tell him that I was busted!"  At this point, one handsome little dark-skinned boy sitting on the back row said, "Did you have to pull your card?"


(For those of you who don't have or work with young children, pulling cards is a discipline system in many classrooms, so this little inquisitive boy was asking whether I'd gotten in big-time trouble with our speaker!)