Hearing words, missing meanings

After years in university classrooms and meeting rooms, I have reached an unsettling conclusion: talking has become harder, not easier. Technology, language and curriculum are not the real obstacles. The deeper problem is quieter and more pervasive: we do not listen to understand; we listen to reply.

I see it first in the classroom. A student begins a question, often hesitantly. Before they finish, another student jumps in with an answer, eager to display knowledge. Sometimes even the teacher (myself included) cuts the question short, assuming we already know what is being asked. We respond to half a sentence with a full lecture. Later we discover that the question was actually something else. The student walks away with the same confusion, now wrapped in the feeling of not being heard.

The same pattern emerges when I ask for feedback. "Any questions?" is usually followed by silence. But in one-to-one conversations, concerns pour out: the last topic was unclear, the pace is too fast, exams are frightening, personal issues are overwhelming. In class they stay quiet because they have learned that our system is designed more for answers than for listening. We celebrate the student who speaks confidently, but rarely the one who listens deeply.

Faculty meetings are no different. On paper they are spaces for consultation and collective wisdom. In practice, they often become parallel monologues. Colleague A is not really listening to Colleague B; they are waiting for a pause to insert their prepared point. We enter with positions, not questions. By the time someone finishes a sentence, we are already drafting our rebuttal. When the meeting ends, we often leave with more heat than light.

Small committee discussions, where goals are shared and stakes are high, repeat the pattern. A proposal is presented; instead of trying to understand the problem it addresses, we rush to judge it: "This will never work", "We tried this before", "Where is the budget?" These may be valid concerns, but their timing matters. Critique without prior understanding closes doors. Some good ideas die not because they were weak, but because they were never truly heard.

Students quietly absorb this culture. When they see teachers and administrators listening only to respond, they imitate the same habit in group work and presentations. In project reviews, one student speaks while others stare at their slides, rehearsing their own parts. The goal shifts from collective learning to individual performance. Education, which should train the ear as much as the tongue, becomes another arena where volume is rewarded more than attention.

I do not exempt myself. I have defended a policy before fully hearing why it troubles my colleagues, or corrected a student mid-sentence because I was impatient to "fix" their thinking. Each time, the conversation shrinks. The other person closes up a little, and a small opportunity for trust disappears.

What would change if we listened differently? Not passively, but actively, with the simple intention to understand before speaking. Meetings might be slower, but more meaningful. Classes might gain only a few minutes of discussion, yet the distance between teacher and student would shorten. Disagreements would still exist, but at least they would rest on what was actually said, not on what we hastily assumed.

Universities love to talk about critical thinking, dialogue and democratic values. These lofty aims begin with a modest discipline: to let another person finish their sentence, to ask one more clarifying question, to hold back a clever reply for a few seconds. If we can relearn this art of listening in our classrooms, offices and corridors, perhaps talking will not feel so difficult anymore. The words will be similar, but behind them, at last, someone will truly have been heard.