Let’s Talk

What do we miss out on when we do not listen, when the social media algorithm projects our unchallenged thoughts onto the screen? Far too many people have become accustomed to launching their views out into the world as if every opinion that leaves their mind has unimpeachable validity. In polite company, the people surrounding the opinion transmitter may just courteously absorb the verbal outpourings this person feels all around must benefit from hearing, as they do not wish to appear rude, but when the people being addressed mistrust the other person’s motives for being there and could even be hostile to the speaker, as was found through the peace process, then the impetus should be to listen more than talk. In the process of seeking commonality, the desire to be right has to be replaced by the need to be open and to be willing to jettison some of your own preconceived thoughts.

When Mary [McAleese] speaks, it is with the calm authority of the lawyer, but contained within that is always a zeal that exposes the purposefulness of every action. The former president of Ireland couldn’t have been clearer with the message she wanted to get across: ‘I’m coming to you not as somebody who wants to change who you are, what you are and what you believe in; I want to come as a good neighbour to accept you, and by you inviting me, you also accept me on my terms.’

Classifying yourself as a liberal and largely conversing with other liberals will mainly result in you burrowing yourself deeper and deeper into a media echo chamber that challenges none of your beliefs either. You will have to proactively seek out contrasting views in order to establish a broader set of facts rather than cherry-picking those that substantiate your own opinions.

First and foremost, if we do not take an interest in the lives of others, how will we be capable of truly understanding the world around us? Professor Byron believes that as we grow older our curiosity subsides, but rather than a natural degeneration, she thinks that it is effectively educated out of our consciousness. As children get older and move into adulthood, she contends that they become less curious, more polarised and less interested. She did not mince her words when she said, ‘I think our education system does everything to drive a natural instinct to be curious out of us.’ In the UK, our education system is ‘built on targets and testing around a curriculum where you have to learn certain things, and you have to be able to answer questions to a marking scheme.’ The result of this approach is generation after generation of children being taught how to display that they have learned a subject to a sufficient degree to be awarded a grade for doing so. As far as Professor Byron is concerned, this system of learning ‘completely sits against curiosity’.

There is an alternative approach and she was keen to stress that there are innovations in education that inject curiosity back into the lives of students. One such innovation is ‘flipped learning’. The orthodox school day involves your wonderful child sitting in the classroom while the teacher feeds them information which they then bring home to analyse and decipher, also known as homework. When you flip this approach, the teacher is no longer the info spreader-in-chief (not a pedagogical term) and the student constructs their own understanding of a subject away from the classroom. Once back in the class, what is absorbed elsewhere is then aided and encouraged by discussion and focused guidance from a teacher.

Even the space within the classroom is changed to accommodate different styles of learning, whether that’s in groups huddled together debating the effects of the naval blockade on Germany and Austria-Hungary on the course of the First World War or sitting alone in a corner cogitating on complicated algebraic conundrums. Flipped learning prioritises inquisitiveness and the importance of having open and invigorating discussions fuelled by a child’s ownership of their learning and, most importantly, a constant nurturing of their curiosity. This is the opposite of a child rote learning, then regurgitating a flurry of facts. Putting the child at the centre of their own education and encouraging them to self-analyse and have the freedom to express their ideas isn’t a million miles away from how Professor Byron addressed her own working practices: ‘That’s kind of how I would work with a patient, you see. So it gets back to curiosity and how you ask a question.’