PRESENCE

PRESENCE

       A new principle/practice!  This one is based on a favorite adage from THE DEATH OF A SALESMAN by Arthur Miller:  The salesman’s wife says: Attention must be paid.

       Dialogue Education is rooted in that respectful behavior: attention!  That word comes from the French: attendre: listen!

Learning to Listen… 

       In a recent conversation with my friend and mentor, Paula Berardinelli, we talked of the power of such attention in the act of teaching/learning. Paula had just returned from an amazing experience with a group of professionals in Silicon Valley. They consistently remarked on her attention to each of them.

       I said: “Paula, we should have a principle/practice that captures that skill, that attitude, that concept of deep respect.”

       Paula replied, “ I think of it as presence, Jane.”

       Presence it is: Real Presence!  Looking into the eyes of a learner, listening with your toes, paying attention to learners from the first steps of designing, through your study of their response to the LNRA, through every learning task in the course. Like a mother hen with scattered chicks, we attend to each one as if she were the only one. We are present to all and our presence is operative in the learning. No one escapes our caring, our attention.

     Attention must be paid, indeed.