Trust and Listening Are Needed for Learning

by Marlena Hirsch January 2010
I work for the Home and Hospital Program of Santa Rosa City Schools. We teach students who can’t attend schools due to illness and a variety of other reasons. I believe one of the unspoken reasons some of our students end up on this program is that they have given up. They are discouraged. The following is a description of the early stages of working with a discouraged teenager.

One of my students had a tough exterior. When I first met her, she acted like people on the Jerry Springer show who loudly display their disputes as if they are proud of making a spectacle. She was so far behind that she wanted to take the high school equivalency test. Yet on two practice tests, she got 12% correct. I spoke to her about why she was in this situation hoping we could gain insight on how to correct what had gone on before. Why hadn't she learned this material? Did she have trouble focusing? Were there distractions in her life? Had she ever been comfortable with school? Assuming that I was putting her down, she became angry. When I was talking to her, she talked over me so that she couldn’t hear me. I informed her that when she does that I can't teach her. She continued becoming more angry and saying she wanted her other teacher from last year. I told her that her previous teacher doesn't teach high school equivalency test preparation. I prepared to leave. She left the house. As her mom and I were talking in the front yard, her mom began to cry. She told me she had tried everything and didn't know what to do. Her daughter returned at that moment and saw her mother crying. I was hoping this would have some calming effect showing the daughter that her mom cares. Hoping she would listen to me, I again began to talk. This time I got right to the point. I told her I was angry that our education system was failing students like her and that the high school drop-out rate was over a third in her neighborhood. Beautiful young people like her were not being served, and I wanted to try to correct this.
She decided to try again. The next day she tried another grammar placement test in the front of a grammar book with the same dismal results. We worked on the first lesson. When I talked to her about how she learns, she bit her tongue and listened. She was not happy about it, but she listened. At the end of the hour, I asked her what she learned and she said she had learned to listen. It is from the solid foundation of trust and listening that learning takes place.
Two months later, we enjoy our lessons together. She wrote an essay about learning from her mistakes. I told her, “ I see learning from mistakes as a hallmark of maturity.” Getting to this point was a gradual process of building trust and learning to enjoy working together.

In Celebration of Eugene

I sometimes visit Lewis Opportunity School, a small alternative secondary school in Santa Rosa, to bring plants, encouragement, and garden ideas. The teacher, his students and I work to beautify a school of run-down portable buildings, asphalt and cyclone fences. It is September, and school has started but something feels very different when I walk onto campus. Something is missing. Eugene is gone. He was the one who greeted me and made me feel that he knew I was part of a special mission to transform the world, one garden and one student at a time. He died during the summer.

I didn't know Eugene well, yet I felt our spirits were delighted by the same things. Eugene noticed which plants were starting to bloom. He knew which students were responding to the plants and which ones cared enough to work to help them grow. He would have been thrilled to see the sprays of yellow daisies on the towering Jerusalem Artichoke plants in the parking-lot planting area, to see the harvest from the potato patch, to see that the newly planted nectarine tree had made in through the dry California summer, and to see how much the grape vines had grown during their first summer.

When I arrived on campus with arms full of plants, Eugene's smile welcomed me. He loved it when I emerged from the bathroom in gardening clothes, my teaching outfit left behind, my mud caked worn-out running shoes on my feet. Now I could do magic. Eugene likened my transformation to what superman did when he donned his cape.
He knew my gardening clothes revealed my true identity.

Transforming the campus by getting the students to create beauty with plants was making a difference in student lives, if not now then years later. They were producing food with their own efforts. The seeds were being planted for a better world. "You can do this yourselves. It's easy." This was the message given by the act of gardening here. Eugene celebrated this vision, and he communicated this with his beaming smile and words of cheer.

I am including the anonymously written poem as a tribute to Eugene and to all who work to create a more peaceful humane world.

A SPIRITUAL CONSPIRACY

On the surface of the world right now there is

war and violence and things seem dark.

But calmly and quietly, at the same time,

something else is happening underground

An inner revolution is taking place

and certain individuals are being called to a higher light.

It is a silent revolution.

From the inside out. From the ground up.

This is a Global operation.

A Spiritual Conspiracy.

There are sleeper cells in every nation on the planet.

You won't see us on the TV.

You won't read about us in the newspaper

You won't hear about us on the radio

We don't seek any glory

We don't wear any uniform

We come in all shapes and sizes, colors and styles

Most of us work anonymously

We are quietly working behind the scenes

in every country and culture of the world

Cities big and small, mountains and valleys,

in farms and villages, tribes and remote islands

You could pass by one of us on the street

and not even notice

We go undercover

We remain behind the scenes

It is of no concern to us who takes the final credit

But simply that the work gets done

Occasionally we spot each other in the street

We give a quiet nod and continue on our way

During the day many of us pretend we have normal jobs

But behind the false storefront at night

is where the real work takes a place

Some call us the Conscious Army

We are slowly creating a new world

with the power of our minds and hearts

We follow, with passion and joy

Our orders come from the Central Spiritual Intelligence

We are dropping soft, secret love bombs when no one is looking

Poems ~ Hugs ~ Music ~ Photography ~ Movies ~ Kind words ~

Smiles ~ Meditation and prayer ~ Dance ~ Social activism ~ Websites

Blogs ~ Random acts of kindness...

We each express ourselves in our own unique ways

with our own unique gifts and talents

Be the change you want to see in the world

That is the motto that fills our hearts

We know it is the only way real transformation takes place

We know that quietly and humbly we have the

power of all the oceans combined

Our work is slow and meticulous

Like the formation of mountains