Are you listening?

By Cindy Reitzi

Years ago, I was slogging through an explanation of how to cite quotes for a Romeo and Juliet essay. Students found acts, scenes, and lines as I explained how to refer to quotes from a play.

“Any questions?” I concluded. After some puzzled whispering, a familiar hand waved. “Joe?”

Frantic hand gestures and heads shaking “no” from fellow classmates warned me.

“Ms. R.,” one student cut in, “you don’t wanna answer that…it’s ‘Joe’,” like that was an explanation. In fact, in classroom code, it was an explanation. Joe was about to ask me to re-explain what I’d imparted 15 minutes ago.

“Joe” is a familiar classroom archetype. Sooner or later, we’ll get a “Joe” in our class, a dreamy kid who isn’t always in the same neighborhood, at the same time, as the rest of the class, especially when it comes to directions. Joe was somehow always out of sync; he was the lone hopeless romantic among cynics who believed in “love at first sight,” sighing deeply in his imaginative reveries. So I can forgive Joe for his fogginess.

I’m less forgiving of inattentive adults. In fact, I’m becoming downright crotchety with adults who are, let’s say, common sense-challenged.

I have different “following directions” standards for adults, believing they “should know better.” I’m finding this is a mistaken belief.

The older I get, the more patient I am with the frustratingly endearing “Joes” in classrooms… because they’re young. They’re still learning. Maybe I’m framing this all wrong. Maybe adults are still learning, too.

This summer, I encountered adults who should be nominated as poster children for not following directions.

This summer, as a board member of my condo association, I organized the repaving of our driveway. As a teacher and writer, I had the hubris to assume that I was eminently qualified to explain the prepping and paving schedule for two driveways in written form. As a teacher, I’ve learned: keep directions simple, provide visuals, write directions on the board, lather, rinse and repeat.

First, I created posters with zippy headlines: “Yippee! No more potholes! We’re getting a new driveway!” Since the owners had paid $900 in an assessment for the driveway repaving, I figured they’d want a driveway.

I then briefly explained when the paving company would prep sections of the driveway and provided a map. I posted these notices by the mailboxes.

Still, I knew that wasn’t enough, so the day before prep work, I posted yet another reminder to move their cars. Both notices shouted to residents on glow-in-the-dark, hunter-orange, florescent paper. Ample street parking was available. Overconfident of my teacherly abilities, I went to bed expecting:

1. Residents would read the notices.
2. Park on the street. After all, they’re adults not teenagers.

At 7:30 a.m. the next morning, Dave, the supervisor, woke me out of a dead sleep. Unlike me, nine cars sat dozing in the parking lot, stalling the paving crew. Pre-coffee and teeth grinding, the board president and I spent the next three hours pounding on doors and calling disconnected numbers to locate owners of vehicles while, around the quiescent cars, Bobcats peeled up asphalt like licorice.

Now I know that parents, teachers and children alike tune out and don’t always follow directions. Mothers tune out “Mommy, mommy” 1,000 times a day while children tune out, “Listen carefully” from adults. Once I gained some inkling of student attention-span, understanding they may have attended three to five classes before mine, I developed strategies for giving directions that most students would tolerate. Even the most attentive student gets wobble-brained if you drone on and on, ad nauseam. However, the average student with a normal attention span will usually listen when I say, “I need two minutes of your time to explain this, then you can get going.” They even enjoy a bit of sarcasm when I warn, “I’m explaining this once. You need to listen now so I’m not hearing – imitating teen voices, facial inflection and eye rolls – ‘What’re we doing?’ ‘What group am I in?’ ‘What did she say?’ ‘Huh?’ ” to knowing glances and amused expressions of the clued-in students. After finishing instructions and asking, “Any questions?,” one witty student often remarks, “What’re we doing? – Just kidding!” to hearty amusement. With the micro attention-span classes, it’s usually best to hand out the assignment with little or no directions and answer questions on an individual basis.

So next time adults wonder at me, “How can you work with teenagers? They’re so…difficult!” I’ll remember my driveway story, take a deep breath and tell myself, “Be patient with them…they’re still learning.”

Posted February 15, 2008 (yes, it was posted late)