Our tennis players at Marcy had fun revisiting last week’s discussion topic—communication—this past Saturday. This time around, Gary led a conversation about a different part of communication: listening. He asked the students, “When we communicate with someone, what else do we do besides talk or express ourselves non-verbally?” After a few guesses, the kids correctly determined that listening is the other big component of communication.
We all talked about the reasons why being a good listener is important to communicating. Careful listening—not just hearing—helps us to comprehend others’ messages. Unless we understand what someone has communicated to us, we can’t respond to them or have a dialogue. Listening well is polite and respectful, too. It shows that we are interested in what someone else has to say. Finally, listening enables us to have balanced conversations with all participants contributing their ideas equally.
We ended the break with several rounds of charades, everyone’s new favorite game off the tennis courts. We played one big site-wide game that included some more challenging words and phrases. Working together as a team, the kids solved every charades performance from “Eating Spaghetti” to “Riding a Rollercoaster” to “Getting Caught in the Rain.”
Here are some pictures of the discussion and the game!
