So much of our communication is brief or in passing. Think about quick text messages, Snapchats deleted in seconds, messages limited to characters. While such digital communication is a part of “twenty-first century learning,” so, too, is collaboration within classrooms, in open-concept-cubicle-land offices spaces, over Zoom meetings, and let us not forget day-to-day human interactions.
In order to be heard, to be understood, we need to learn more than digital tools; we need to learn more than strategies to read or write; we actually need to communicate with human beings.
In the junior high, college composition, and teacher education classrooms, we all practice how to ask questions and listen; we experience how to bear witness to each other’s lives; we all reflect on how the interview/conversation impacts future interactions with one another. In this way, we try to live our belief that every life matters equally and infinitely.
In our junior high class, we go one step further to interview the human beings who have impacted our lives beyond the classroom. In our junior high community story project, we interview friends, family, neighbors, coaches, and clergy. Bear witness to these stories at the end of this post. For this, students and parents sign a consent/assent form so that we can share our project.
In the college composition class, writers interview a person they admire, who has a life or way of being they want to understand better. The interview is the first of four projects where college freshman imagine their future and learn to write within the discourse of their anticipated career. For example, one writer began with an interview of her mother, an accountant, and then the three subsequent projects were related to accounting, accounting firms, and ethical issues in the profession.
The encounter of coming together with another human being makes possible understanding and sensitivity to diverse cultures and ways of being in the world. Stories and the constructing of stories teach us empathy. I feel a palpable difference in our classroom community during and after the interview experience. Periodically, we come back to the published recordings to revisit our stories and remind ourselves why we are here, especially when our work becomes too skills-focused.
Still, there are aspects of interviewing and conversation that can make some encounters more meaningful than others, so here is how I try to nurture compassionate conversation.
Genre Study
To begin, we listen to and watch interview examples from StoryCorp. We identify the interview, interviewee, purpose of interview, questions, reactions, and representation of humanity. We watch, listen, and take notes on this simple graphic organizer (below). What I try to emphasize is 1) open-ended questions (tell me about) and 2) active listening (sorry to hear that, tell me more).
Practice
After getting an idea of what makes a “good” interview, we practice. I model the process. For our practice, we focus on our upbringing. I sit with a student in the front of the classroom, and we go through the protocol of how to record an interview, document the date and consent, begin with a general question, follow-up with something deeper, and use body language to show active listening.
Then, I pair students randomly, and we go through the process together one more time before students disperse to corners and hallways to try it on their own. Below is a PDF of the protocol I used with the college writing class:
InterviewPublishing Audio and Descriptive Writing
To publish together, we click through the process of uploading the audio file to our class blog. For many students this is new; they have never created an MP3/4 or heard their own voices through a speaker or earbuds. Students listen to their interview and make notes about segments they could have asked a follow-up question or moments they felt they were really attending.
We do a quick write-up of what the listener of the audio cannot know or grasp through the recording — gestures, facial expressions, the setting/surroundings — practicing sensory and descriptive writing.
The next step is to apply this practice to an interview experience beyond the classroom. See my example below, and below that an example of the junior high community story project.
Final Thoughts
I posted on Facebook the other night a concern I had in facilitating this project. This project makes me smile, laugh, and cry at various phases. I am in awe of the complexity of the lives students live and feel such hope for humanity at the compassion I witness in these interactions in person and over audio. Still, there is a sense of voyeurism that gives me pause. Listening in on these intimate conversations makes me feel intrusive, so I think there is some work to be done on my part in uncovering this aspect of bearing witness with students. I am thinking about Wendy Hesford’s work in her book Spectaular Rhetorics about how Western audience gaze upon images of human rights violations. How do we listen, view, read ethically. Is informed consent enough?
My Example
For junior high students, I offer an example of an interview I conducted with my sisters, and we talk about the impact this interview had on me and how, in listening to the interview, seeing pictures, and reading my description, students see or understanding me in a new way. Perhaps I am more humanized; perhaps they found a connection to my life. See below.
Lessons learned from growing up in a family of eleven siblings. The first voice is my sister Mary (6/11); the second is Julie’s voice (7/11), and the third is Jaime’s voice (11/11). I put their birth order in parentheses here. I am the 9th of the 11 children.
I have seven sisters and three brothers. We are all grown up, which means we all have our own families and homes — and traditions. It is difficult to get everyone together for a holiday meal these days, so if we want to get together for Christmas or Easter, we have to do so on any day but the actual holiday. This Easter was no different. My youngest sister Jaime hosted an Easter brunch at her home on the Saturday before Easter, so I texted the siblings who’d be there (four out of the eleven of us) to see if they’d be up for an little interview.
Even though breakfast started at 11 am, we were all still chatting in the family room at 2:00 pm, so I thought it was a good time to do the interview. Jaime made us some hot tea. We gathered around her large, square, leather ottoman for the interview. I knelt on the floor while Jaime curled up on her sofa, and Mary and Julie pulled up a couple comfy chairs. Mary’s partner did not want to participate, but she was listening, smiling, and giggling a little bit nearby. Jaime’s kids, Owen and Kate, were taking naps upstairs, and my husband along with Jaime’s husband and Julie’s husband were in the living room watching basketball with Julie’s son, Sammy. We could hear the game in the background, and we could also hear Kate singing in her crib through the baby monitor. The sun was shining through the windows, and everyone seemed to be feeling rather bright and cheery themselves for the interview- chat.
I loved hearing my smart and sweet sisters talk about growing up in the first clip, and then about life lessons and their personal values. I heard their hearts shining through in that short conversation. We all value kindness and bringing good into the world. You can hear passion from each voice, a passion about who they are and who they are trying to be and still become for themselves and the people they love. I am so honored to be their sister.
Wow!! I love this!! My co-teacher and I just began working with our 7th graders on the “art of conversation” in the hopes of improving the depth of their interactions with kids around the world on a program called Inspiraleducation.com. We’re practicing interviewing peers and it’s been a challenge to create new lessons that teach kids how to maintain and go deeper into a conversation. Your work is impressive and very helpful in adding to what we’re doing. We’re hoping to encourage a deeper conversation with kids globally. I’m wondering if the quality of the interview changes when the students do not know the interviewee. At this point we’re just practicing interviewing peers.
When students interview their families and neighbors, the interviews do go a little deeper because of the follow-up questions that are required. This year, students will interview to understand time and place better, using the interview as a primary source for writing a story about the person’s life. If the interviewer has to do some writing after the interview, the interview becomes a source for that, so designing a project that demands depth might help. My 7th graders are going to write a historical fiction short story based on the life of an elder in their community.