Life's a strange thing…

Because I ended up being a traveller and teacher, I've met and chatted to 1000s of people, from dozens of countries, and I myself have been to over 20 countries.

Since I accidentally became an English teacher, I consciously began listening really carefully to people, whether as a participant, as a bystander, or in media. I became very good at it. It means that when I chat to people they feel able to express themselves with me. This is especially true with children, because most adults barely listen to them.

(I like this, because then I get to hear all their stories and life experiences, their desires and their sadnesses, and the things they’ve learned in their journey so far, which adds to my own learning and understanding of life.)

It also means I can pay careful attention to the language media are using, and I can spot manipulated or manipulating messaging from a country mile.

Furthermore, I've always been a prolific reader and researcher.

And I'm a keen observer of human and animal behaviour, and I feel deeply connected to the spellbinding beauty of our natural world.

With this background painted, I will say that there is a tremendous amount of human suffering in our human world, and I don't mean those who are in poverty looking for their next meal.

It's mindblowing how much damage humans do to each other and themselves, even though they don’t want to!

And it continues unabated, in part because of people's 'ability' to pretend to themselves and others that life is 'just fine'. But I’ve heard people’s stories, and I read and hear lots of such stories in media. So many people are unhappy, lonely, struggling.

It’s a fact from my experience: lend a pair of willing and empathetic ears, and people will be so glad to open up and express their problems and talk about their experiences. My mum used to say to me, ‘A problem shared is a problem halved’. But another fact is that listening skills in the general population are poor, so there are very few willing and able pairs of ears going around!

Problems are not shared or halved, they just go on accumulating in our memory bank and our heart, bubbling away in the background until they become too much to bear. 2020 anyone?

It's sad. Especially sad because I know, from my own work as an educator and from my life's journey, that nearly all of this emotional and psychological suffering is unnecessary. I also know that just about all this human strife has one cause, and always the same cause...

Poor communication skills.

We struggle to articulate ourselves, and we are unskilled in listening. Conflict and confrontation are inevitable.

[Warning: now shifting gear into ‘rant’ mode…]

The ability and confidence to communicate - relating to, and with, other human beings - is the single most important skill a human being needs…

… and yet it's totally ignored by the school systems.

We get 12 years of potential practice during our schooling, which is 10-15,000 hours of learning time, but if we have our communication skills suppressed instead of developed, and have the confidence to express ourselves snuffed out of us, then this can only be described as a COMPLETELY WASTED EDUCATION.

And that is indeed what happens.

Over ten thousand hours of potential listening and speaking skills practice thrown in the bin. How terribly tragic for our human world. Childhood stolen, adulthood primed for struggling relationships.

It has devastating consequences for all of us.

It's like Mother Eagle clipping Baby Eagle's wings just after birth.

It's like putting a young bat through vision school.

It's like stuffing a puppy's nose with chilli powder every single day.

It’s even worse though.

We human beings are a social animal, yet we are sat in rows and columns during those thousands of hours of ‘education’, thereby denying us facial interaction, eye contact, and human connection with each other.

Both verbal and non-verbal communication blocked. For 12 years, and 10,000+ hours.

We are social animals, getting an anti-social education throughout our childhood.

It's 100% batshit crazy.

I will turn to solutions in a near future post. Till then, ask yourself this:

How would my life be enhanced if I was a skilled, attentive and empathic listener, and if I was able to confidently and clearly express and articulate my thoughts and ideas about, and perspectives of, our shared world?

And: how would human life be transformed if we all had 10,000 hours of learning which developed our communication, learning and social skills??

I invite you to add your comments below!