Active Listening

Every Monday, both classes meet together for a Second Step lesson. Second Step lessons teach us how to get along with each other. Right now, we're in our Empathy Training unit, which is teaching us how to understand our feelings and others' feelings. Today we discussed active listening. We learned how to show others we're actively listening by stopping what we're doing, facing them, nodding or saying that we understand what they're saying, and asking questions (without interrupting). Using active listening skills is a respectful way to treat others who are speaking. Sometimes it is difficult to be an active listener, such as when people talk for a long time, when you're late for something, or when there's something else you're interested in. We discussed several strategies for these situations, both at school and home. Active listening is a skill we use every day in both classes to make sure we understand directions given.

Being an active listener not only helps us learn, but is also useful in our friendships. During today's lesson, we also did some role-playing with a partner. We discussed how we could tell our partner was listening to what we were saying and how we felt when we could tell s/he was listening.