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News & Photos
The Best Advice: Pay Attention
There is only one time each year when I can speak with you simply as the head of Lower School (without also being the emcee for events like the “Celebration of Peace & Light” or Closing Ceremony). That time is tonight – right here and right now. I try each year to use this opportunity to say something worth listening to... and this time, I would like to share a few thoughts on the value of paying attention. (Is everyone with me so far?)
Those two words – “pay attention” – are certainly the most common piece of advice that parents give their children when school begins. “Pay attention to your teacher.”
More importantly, those two words are probably the best advice that anyone can get in order to take the first step toward living a loving and generous life. Always and everywhere, we have to pay attention first.
Consider for a moment how many things compete for your attention every day. “Your attention, please” is a message we get daily from:
- television
- radio
- telephones: landline/cell/BlackBerry
- email
- text messages
- junk mail
- catalogs/newspapers
- traffic
- calendars
- clocks
- clients
- co-workers
- and finally, friends and family.
The more our attention is divided and scattered, the less of it we have to give to any one purpose… or person. And yet – whether we are 5 or 95 – all of us crave the attention of other human beings.
One of the most distressing and dehumanizing experiences we can have is for another person to pay little or no attention to us. He or she is telling us that we are not important enough to warrant full and complete attention.
Sincere, direct attention affirms and validates us. Inattention or indifference negates and invalidates us.
Here’s an example from literature. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman’s wife, Linda, admonishes her sons with these words:
“(Willy’s) not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being … so attention must be paid. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.”
By this point you may be saying “OK, Noreen, I’m hanging in here with you … I’m paying attention …but what does this have to do with Back-to-School Night?”
Just this – great teaching is all about paying exquisite attention to every one of the unique and unrepeatable human beings who are unfolding themselves before us every day. Great teachers listen for and pay attention to what their students know, and think, and understand, and question, and feel, and fear.
The teachers you will meet tonight are paying attention to who your children are right now – and to whom they can become in the next nine months and beyond. The attention teachers pay – like a debt that is owed – is the single most important element in our mission to grow confident, capable, caring children who truly can find joy in work and play.
Paying attention at that level, to a classroom full of young children, demands time, effort, energy, and emotion. Teachers need your vocal support and your vote of confidence so, please pass those along whenever you can.
I thought you might enjoy hearing about what teachers want their students to pay attention to this year – in addition to the content of the curriculum, of course! There is a common theme:
- I would like the children to be aware of the happiness of others by focusing on how their actions may positively or negatively affect others. (Grade 3)
- I ask that they try to pay attention to the needs of the group before attending to their own needs. This is admittedly difficult for young children, but at least we can try! (Grade 3)
- I would like my students to have a heightened awareness of their natural surroundings because that is where the music is. (Early Childhood Music)
- Pay attention to how your actions affect others. (Grade 4)
In the book Choosing Civility, by P.M. Forni, which I recommended to you in my summer letter, the #1 rule of Considerate Conduct is “Pay Attention.”
In closing, I offer the two quotes that introduce the chapter on that rule.
“A human moment occurs anytime two or more people are together, paying attention to one another.”
-- Edward Hallowell
“The principal form that the work of love takes is attention.” -- M. Scott Peck
Teaching and parenting are two of the highest forms that the work of love can take. I am very glad that we have another year to do that work together. Thank you for your kind attention.
There is only one time each year when I can speak with you simply as the head of Lower School (without also being the emcee for events like the “Celebration of Peace & Light” or Closing Ceremony). That time is tonight – right here and right now. I try each year to use this opportunity to say something worth listening to... and this time, I would like to share a few thoughts on the value of paying attention. (Is everyone with me so far?)
Those two words – “pay attention” – are certainly the most common piece of advice that parents give their children when school begins. “Pay attention to your teacher.”
More importantly, those two words are probably the best advice that anyone can get in order to take the first step toward living a loving and generous life. Always and everywhere, we have to pay attention first.
Consider for a moment how many things compete for your attention every day. “Your attention, please” is a message we get daily from:
- television
- radio
- telephones: landline/cell/BlackBerry
- text messages
- junk mail
- catalogs/newspapers
- traffic
- calendars
- clocks
- clients
- co-workers
- and finally, friends and family.
The more our attention is divided and scattered, the less of it we have to give to any one purpose… or person. And yet – whether we are 5 or 95 – all of us crave the attention of other human beings.
One of the most distressing and dehumanizing experiences we can have is for another person to pay little or no attention to us. He or she is telling us that we are not important enough to warrant full and complete attention.
Sincere, direct attention affirms and validates us. Inattention or indifference negates and invalidates us.
Here’s an example from literature. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman’s wife, Linda, admonishes her sons with these words:
“(Willy’s) not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being … so attention must be paid. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.”
By this point you may be saying “OK, Noreen, I’m hanging in here with you … I’m paying attention …but what does this have to do with Back-to-School Night?”
Just this – great teaching is all about paying exquisite attention to every one of the unique and unrepeatable human beings who are unfolding themselves before us every day. Great teachers listen for and pay attention to what their students know, and think, and understand, and question, and feel, and fear.
The teachers you will meet tonight are paying attention to who your children are right now – and to whom they can become in the next nine months and beyond. The attention teachers pay – like a debt that is owed – is the single most important element in our mission to grow confident, capable, caring children who truly can find joy in work and play.
Paying attention at that level, to a classroom full of young children, demands time, effort, energy, and emotion. Teachers need your vocal support and your vote of confidence so, please pass those along whenever you can.
I thought you might enjoy hearing about what teachers want their students to pay attention to this year – in addition to the content of the curriculum, of course! There is a common theme:
- I would like the children to be aware of the happiness of others by focusing on how their actions may positively or negatively affect others. (Grade 3)
- I ask that they try to pay attention to the needs of the group before attending to their own needs. This is admittedly difficult for young children, but at least we can try! (Grade 3)
- I would like my students to have a heightened awareness of their natural surroundings because that is where the music is. (Early Childhood Music)
- Pay attention to how your actions affect others. (Grade 4)
In the book Choosing Civility, by P.M. Forni, which I recommended to you in my summer letter, the #1 rule of Considerate Conduct is “Pay Attention.”
In closing, I offer the two quotes that introduce the chapter on that rule.
“A human moment occurs anytime two or more people are together, paying attention to one another.”
-- Edward Hallowell
“The principal form that the work of love takes is attention.” -- M. Scott Peck
Teaching and parenting are two of the highest forms that the work of love can take. I am very glad that we have another year to do that work together. Thank you for your kind attention.