Abstract

Sounds are all around us, all the time. We constantly engage in listening: to the everyday sounds of the streets on our way to work, to the black-bird's soft nattering an early morning in spring, to a teacher's tiresome talk. Nature speaks to us with a thousand voices, and a place sounds of its inhabitants. Normally, we take our ability to hear as a matter of course; hearing is an implicit and mostly unreflected engagement in our daily activities. As educators, however, we cannot take our students' capability of listening for granted. One problem of education, Angelo Caranfa argues, is that it fails to teach the significance of listening and silence. The present predominant focus on discourse and critical thinking...