“Listening is an act of love.”
So says Dave Isay, the founder of StoryCorps.
StoryCorps is a project that provides a space for people to listen to each other.
The project travels around the country in an Airstream trailer and recording equipment so people can sit face to face (ear to ear, really) and ask each other questions and listen to each other’s stories.
The recordings are moving, sometimes so much so that I have to pull my car over to the side of the road to cry the deep, deep tears of the heart.
I’m thinking about Isay’s precept every day this school year.
How can I be a good listener to my students?
It’s tough, sometimes.
I have a student who barely talks at all.
She never raises her hand during classroom discussion.
She never speaks unless spoken to (and doesn’t speak more than a sentence or above a whisper, even then).
She always finds her way to the end of our line, whether we’re going to related arts, lunch, recess, or the bus.
She is a quiet kid.
Since I haven’t been able to listen much to her yet (I believe my teacher magic will get through to her by Christmas), I listened to her last years teacher to learn a little bit more about her.
“I did a project where I asked my students, ‘If you had a million dollars, what would you do with it?’ She wrote, ‘I would help my dad come to me from Mexico.’”
There it is.
Now I know why she is a person of long and deep silences.
She loves someone and there is a wall, figuratively and perhaps soon literally, between them.
Though she is the quiet kid, and though she is carrying this heavy thing in her heart, I wish you could spend the day with her as a teacher as I do.
Her deep brown eyes are full of questions and curiosity, the kinds of questions and thinking that push the world forward and make it better for everyone.
She works so hard to be the best person she can be and do the best work she can do.
Her words are few, but she has listening ears and a big heart.
She is like my little character Hilcias in a book I am writing about, well, about listening.
I hope you can hear her.
Listening
Hilcias had small ears. Well, they were less than small. They were minute. He used to be self conscious about them. When he stepped into a classroom for the first time, his glasses slipped off one of those ears and hung crooked across his face. His ears weren't big enough to hold them.
"We come from a family with little ears but big hearts," said his abuelo one day as Hilcias was moping down a row of tomatoes, thinking about the laughter of his classmates. “Good thing you don't talk. You can use your brain for listening. Your ears sure won't help you much.”
As he grew older and fell in love with whales, though, he discovered that blue whales, which are the biggest animals to have ever lived on earth, have ears the size of the point of a pencil.
"The blue whales know how I feel," he thought. And that made him feel better.
Hilcias really did have a big heart.
Literally.
One day, when he was a toddler, he fell at the end of a row of tomatoes in his abuelo's garden and bruised his ribs on a jagged rock. His abuelo and his mami took him to the free medical clinic. His abuelo wrapped his arms around him and placed his giant calloused hand on his chest to keep him still. He took quick, shallow breaths because if he breathed slowly and deeply his whole body hurt.
When they looked at the x-ray, the doctor exclaimed, "His ribs are bruised but, my God, look at the size of his heart! I've never seen a heart so big in a child so small."
An echocardiogram confirmed it.
"It's rare in children, "said the doctor, "But his heart is enlarged because his heart muscle isn't squeezing well and his heart grew bigger to compensate. The good news is, we can treat him. He can lead a nearly normal life. He'll just have to use his heart in different ways than other folks."
Later, with a book by his bedside, his abuelo said, "I want you to have listening ears and a big heart, my grandson, so it seems like nature is helping my wishes come true. Don't you worry. I'll always love you just the way you are. You're perfect to me and for the world."
His abuelo kissed him on the forehead.
It comforted him again when he learned that a blue whale has the largest heart on earth. It's as big as a Volkswagen Beetle.
"I have a heart like a blue whale," he thought.
And that made him smile.
