How we can use the art of listening to heal the divisions in our country

There’s an opportunity to do this in classrooms, living rooms and assembly rooms. It starts with setting the stage and ground rules to promote honest and safe dialogue. It continues with free-flowing exchanges after we take a chance and learn why others believe what they believe.

“I used to joke that I was a passive anarchist waiting for civilization to crumble under the weight of Twitter and its friends. However, our dialogues and the outlook of the class give me hope for the world to come where I can listen and be heard by people that don’t have the same political beliefs as me,” wrote one student about the moderated dialogue sessions used in my Religious Studies classes at Southern Methodist University.

Smarting from another round of mass shootings and the resulting divisive debate, Americans don’t agree about much these days. Pew Research Center data documents this polarization and common experience indicates our incivility in this disagreement, creating an environment of vigilance for possible offense and experiences of isolation that can lead to extreme actions.

I’m encouraged by the power of honest and inclusive dialogue in the classroom and the potential healing power for the world beyond. As we practice what’s called reflective structured dialogue, students open up, engage and begin to feel they belong. While many professors cringe or avoid controversial topics altogether, I’ve seen breakthroughs during discussions about guns or clashing ideologies. I’ve seen conflict avoided and would-be adversaries turned to allies — all prompted by managed and meaningful discussions that allow all to be heard.

Though these life-changing experiences are only happening in a few higher education settings around the country, this model of a dialogic classroom teaches skills for listening and engagement that students can take to greater communities of government, nongovernmental agencies, faith traditions and business institutions.

The heart of dialogic classrooms is reflective structured dialogue. RSD is anchored by core principles developed by Cambridge, Mass., nonprofit Essential Partners and applied in response to abortion clinic shootings in the late 1980s. Founders of the organization noticed that the discourse about abortion resembled dysfunctional family relationships where people moved very quickly into states of vigilance and attack, expecting the worst of each other, often becoming alienated. They deployed family therapy techniques that emphasized speaking to be understood and listening to understand in controlled settings to encourage dialogue, trust and renewed relationships between polarized parties.

The approach asks each participant to tell a story about a life experience that will help others understand why that person holds a belief. Participants are encouraged to connect their positions to deeply held values, and then speak about where they feel pulled or conflicted. These periods for speaking and listening, followed by periods of reflection, are timed to ensure that all involved can both speak and listen deeply. Students and faculty who may be afraid to broach controversial issues for fear of a classroom blow-up can engage those issues and each other. It turns out that teaching students to listen better — with intention, curiosity and resilience — roots them in a sense of community and shared purpose.

It seems obvious that listening is a key component of effective learning and civic engagement. We can’t understand someone if we haven’t heard him first. But we regularly overlook listening as a skill to be taught and cultivated. In 20 years of college teaching, I worked to help students improve writing, speaking and presentation skills. Then it dawned on me that listening is foundational to almost everything, and I realized my opportunity to teach that in my religious studies curriculum.

I’ve been employing these techniques in college classrooms across the country since 2016. Sessions begin by creating a set of communication agreements with students, such as not interrupting and listening with courage to opinions that differ from their own. We often develop those agreements by asking students what conditions would have to be in place for them to dissent from a prevalent viewpoint, or by asking them how they know they are really being listened to.

The result is the creation of campus spaces where students are more willing to speak, even about things they know will run counter to majority campus cultures; greater engagement with course lectures, readings and fields of knowledge; and an ability to articulate listening as a valuable personal and civic skill.

Survey data of students involved in dialogic classrooms — where faculty were trained in reflective structured dialogue and then did a minimum of three dialogic exercises over the course of a semester — shows more than 50% of students reported improved willingness to speak. Some 74% reported better comprehension of course material. More than 80% reported an increased or greater sense of belonging. Written responses show that students feel they can use these skills outside of the classroom, and faculty report using dialogic approaches to address difficult topics, such as the October 2018 synagogue shooting in Philadelphia.

Students also report a greater resiliency and comfort when listening to viewpoints that differ from their own, something I have witnessed as my students discussed guns in American society, the death penalty, homosexuality in religious contexts, and government roles in human reproduction. They certainly don’t agree about these things, but given the right structure, they can speak and listen. Nothing blows up.

Valuing dialogue and teaching students techniques will not solve every ill of the modern university, or the society whose troubles the university reflects. We will still struggle with free speech, security and changing realities presented by social media. But we will always have the option to listen and the satisfaction that we have been heard.

Jill DeTemple is associate professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University and a faculty associate at Essential Partners. She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.