Being in the education world for a long time I have come to realize a few things. One of those is the simple fact that teachers are the absolute worst audience you will ever have. Its something I never thought would be possible. Teachers demand respect from their students and want them to make sure they are listening so they can learn something. In my aspects as a speech teacher, I always stress the importance of listening as a sign of respect to the person speaking. Unfortunately as teachers, we must have missed that lesson.
Let me give you an example. During staff meetings the principal is talking to the teachers. While I am sitting there quietly listening, there are many staff members talking away discussing something that happened that day or something they are planning on doing later that week. Part of this is understandable since teachers don't get a lot of opportunity to work with each other and this is one of the few times during the month that they might see other teachers (its a fairly big school).
However, I get so frustrated with it and I'm not even the one doing the talking. We get frustrated when our own students won't listen, yet here we are ignorning our own principal.
What I want you to learn from this is something that all of you should know - treat others how you want to be treated. All of us know this phrase - it is something that we have heard for a long time. However, the situation I talked about with teachers is not uncommon to all businesses. Most people like to talk and they have a hard time NOT talking when others are speaking.
Keep this in mind when you are listening to a speaker - and hopefully others keep this in mind when you are speaking.
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