Would learning feel different if we had less shame about not knowing, and cultivated more courage and curiosity and willingness to say 'I don’t know much about that—tell me more' ?
And we listened, really listened, to another person?
Feeling truly seen and heard can be a rare thing, yet to listen in a way that makes others authentically feel heard is a real gift (and a practical skill) that we can bring to our real-life experiences every single day.
It may not always feel easy or comfortable, but listening opens up our world, our mind, and our heart; it connects us to our mutual humanity, and it’s vital for the deeper learning, critical reflection, and authentic relationships that form the cornerstones of service-learning and community engagement.
We are designating our efforts in 2018-2019 as My Year of Listening - intentionally choosing the word “my” to suggest that each of us must begin from within and ask ourselves Am I Listening? Throughout the year, Duke Service-Learning will be offering plenty of opportunities to listen, to practice your listening skill set, to deepen your understanding of the listening process.
Context and Connections: An Immersive Experience for Duke Faculty in Durham, an engaged bus tour, offers an opportunity to faculty to deepen their knowledge of and connections to the Durham community by listening to stories of Durham and Duke’s past, present, and future collaborations in downtown and local neighborhoods.
Faculty Fellows - Our 2018-19 cohort will listen in on colleague’s classrooms to learn the creative and compelling ways that Duke professors integrate community-based activities into their service-learning and community-engaged courses.
Collaborative Xchange offers the chance for faculty to take a LISTENING VISIT to k-12 schools in Durham to gain insights into working with/in DPS schools.
On December 5th, Dean Valerie Ashby will join Duke Service-Learning in an interactive conversation with Duke students, faculty, staff, and neighborhood leaders entitled Listen First: A conversation about authentic listening, leadership, and learning. We will explore challenges all of us face as we try to listen authentically and to listen first.
We hope you’ll join us on this listening journey!
