Christine Miles is the founder of The Listening Path and the author of “What Is It Costing You Not to Listen?: The Power of Understanding to Connect, Influence, Solve & Sell.”
With America’s children back in classrooms, parents, teachers and policymakers are engaged in an increasingly urgent debate over technology in our schools.
Should cellphones be banned during the school day? How much screen time is too much? Have laptops, tablets and educational apps become distractions, rather than tools for learning?
These are important questions. But I believe we are overlooking a much more fundamental problem.
We are trying to eliminate distractions without teaching children how to pay attention.
Taking a phone away from a student may remove one distraction. Closing a laptop may remove another. But neither action teaches a child how to listen, process what is being said, retain information and understand what it means.
That is the classroom crisis we aren’t addressing.
Teachers across the country are sounding the alarm about students’ inability to remain focused. Some report spending nearly a quarter of the school day simply trying to regain students’ attention. At the same time, parents are increasingly concerned about the amount of classroom instruction being delivered through screens.
The instinctive response is understandable: Remove the technology.
But then what?
Imagine taking every cellphone out of every classroom in America tomorrow. Would students suddenly become better listeners? Would comprehension immediately improve? Would children automatically know how to focus on a teacher, identify the important information being presented and retain it?
Of course not.
That’s because listening is a skill, and skills have to be taught.
We would never expect children to become proficient readers without teaching them how to read. We don’t hand a child a pencil and expect him or her to instinctively understand how to write. Schools devote years to teaching reading, writing, math and verbal communication.
Yet we spend remarkably little time explicitly teaching children how to listen.
Instead, we treat listening as something children should simply know how to do.
“Pay attention.”
“Listen to me.”
“Stop talking.”
“Focus.”
Teachers and parents say these things countless times. But telling a child to listen is not the same as teaching a child how to listen.
That distinction matters enormously.
Listening isn’t simply hearing words. Effective listening requires children to slow down, follow information, distinguish what matters, connect ideas, ask questions and make meaning from what they hear. Those abilities affect virtually everything that happens in a classroom.
Children who aren’t listening effectively will struggle to understand instructions. They will miss critical parts of lessons. They may have difficulty participating in discussions. They can appear distracted or disengaged, even when the deeper problem is that no one has ever taught them what effective listening actually requires.
And, in today’s digital environment, that skill has become even more important.
Children are growing up surrounded by devices engineered to compete for their attention. Notifications, videos, games and social media encourage rapid shifts from one stimulus to another. We should absolutely have serious conversations about where smartphones and screens belong in schools.
But banning phones without teaching listening is like removing junk food from a child’s diet without teaching nutrition. We’ve removed one source of the problem without developing the skill needed for long-term success.
The answer shouldn’t be technology versus no technology. Technology can be an extraordinary educational tool when used appropriately.
The larger question should be: Are we teaching children how to learn in an environment where their attention is constantly under assault?
That requires making listening part of education itself.
I have seen the difference this can make through my work with schools using The Listening Path, a structured approach designed to teach children how to listen, understand and connect with what they hear. When listening becomes something students consciously practice rather than something adults repeatedly demand, classroom engagement can change.
There is another benefit that extends far beyond academic performance.
Children who learn to listen become better equipped to understand other people.
At a time when our society is increasingly polarized and communication often consists of people talking past one another, teaching children how to genuinely listen may be one of the most valuable life skills schools can provide.
Good listeners become better classmates, friends, employees, managers, spouses and parents. They are better prepared to understand perspectives different from their own and to solve problems, rather than simply react to them.
This is why the current debate over cellphones and screens, while necessary, is too narrow.
Yes, schools should establish sensible boundaries around smartphones. Yes, educators should examine whether excessive screen use is interfering with learning. And yes, parents deserve to know how technology is being used during the school day.
But we cannot confuse removing distractions with creating attention.
If we want students to comprehend more, retain more and engage more deeply in the classroom, we need to stop assuming that listening happens automatically.
Reading is taught.
Writing is taught.
Speaking is taught.
Listening should be taught, too.
We can take every phone out of every classroom in America. But, unless we teach children what to do with their attention once we have it, we will have solved only half the problem.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
