An emphasis on hearing skills would give our children a better education

Schools have changed. Mac used to sweep his laser-like gaze around the classroom to ensure no head lifted from mute concentration over an exercise book, except when he rapped out the order “Eyes here!”. Pedagogy now has a place for students to listen to each other as they tackle set tasks or present their research and opinions. “Collaborative learning” theory acknowledges that talking among peers or with adults facilitates thinking and remembering. In most curricular areas, however, the eye is still imperious. Almost without exception the task will focus –note how the ocular terminology steps in with jackboots! – on something initially presented visually with a view (sic) to producing an outcome to be assessed visually.

There is abundant evidence that individuals tend to prefer one perceptual modality or another, and that this needs serious consideration in educational planning. Visual types prefer pictures, the written word, and the teacher’s demonstrations; aural types would rather listen to a lecture, discuss with a group or even talk themselves; tactile and other types would choose other activities. Despite the findings of researchers, sensory preference is still much ignored in most education programs.

Teachers in the staffroom shrug wearily over the poor listening skills of their students. The crammed daily timetable gives little hope of inserting regular sequential lessons in effective use of voice and ear. Yet even children whose preferred sensory modality is auditory would benefit from giving oral language the same status as written language throughout their schooling. The long-standing neglect of good musical education should also be corrected. And in the wider community we should be promoting discussion circles, public speaking and debating, community music concerts. Perhaps people should be encouraged to talk to themselves aloud – and respond. I’m sure that for some it would be far more effective than trying to sort out their ideas by scribbling on paper in silence.

Old Mac was a bloke of his times. Straight lines were the way of the world, whether applied to kids lining up to enter the classroom or to the formation of desks inside or to the margins to be ruled on each page of the exercise book. Throughout the world that linear uniformity has been giving way for some years now; an acceptance of complexity and diversity has been growing. We have learnt that light bends, that the universe could be curved, that chaos could be a fundamental scientific principle. A more deliberate emphasis on hearing, as opposed to seeing, will help us to build a more humane, more profound, and more creative basis for the world.