Civics, Listening, & the Classroom | Dr. David Bobb | BRI’s Constitutional Conversations

0:00 like that I think I think that we know and we focus on that the idea of speaking as a skill but not enough on listening as a skill you’re really truly listening to someone else to listen to their perspective and their their point of view takes it’s an extra bit of effort it’s really hard you know I think I don’t want to portray the founders as if they this was the sort of

0:21 Halcyon period in which everybody had these amazing kumbaya moments right I mean there were long knives drawn and people were mad at each other and there were lifelong disagreements that resulted in in in severed friendships they are not Paragons of virtue but one thing that they did do and I think this

0:42 might be especially applicable for for teachers when it comes to questions of classroom management you know the Constitutional Convention had a lot of problems and a lot of challenges in the way even that it was structured but one thing that it did really well was set the parameters by which good debate could happen and that goes to your point about listening you

1:02 know you have to sit and stay and and and even when it gets a little bit tough to listen right Hamilton gave a speech that went on for five hours that’d be a little bit long right to carry on in any class but if you set the parameters of a debate up where every voice can be heard even that quieter student that’s loath to speak and that you you you paved the

1:24 way for other students to gain that habit of listening because really out what we’re doing in civics is trying to create a disposition right it’s it’s it’s a habit of heart and mind it’s saying that I’m open to the the viewpoint of the viewpoints of other people truly open that I’m going to be listening in a way it’s by that means

1:44 that civil society is built that’s one of the remarkable accomplishments of what happened in the Constitutional Convention again it wasn’t a matter of saying we’re going to figure out how this document will solve everything once and for all that it will mean an end to disagreement on the contrary it’s going to be a means of managing the disagreement and of changing such as it

2:07 needs to by the will of the people through the amendment that take that took a remarkable degree of humility you know because they could have said you know it’s a wrapping up the constitutional convention you know we really don’t want to send this out to the states that’s gonna be a big long messy process where we have to persuade a bunch of more people right we’re the

2:27 learning ones why don’t we just stick with this plan and you know let’s just anoint this guy George Washington did a pretty good job as head of the convention you know he did a pretty good job being general leading us to victory in the Revolutionary War why don’t we just make him the the the go-to you know we don’t have to call him a king but the go-to leader for the next few years because this is gonna be a lot

2:49 easier and it’s gonna be a lot less work they didn’t do that in an act of humility they said you know what we’re gonna put it out to the people and if the people reject this plan it is rejected and you know it was a very close run thing change of a few votes here and a few votes there in a few states and the Constitution would not

3:09 have come into being but their idea was let’s persuade let’s do the hard work of politics and let’s push this thing across the finish line so that it can really create an atmosphere of openness to other people’s arguments and ideas