CFC Blog #86: Listening More Than Speaking

This is beautiful, Lauren. It reminds me of why I like to constantly remind myself that there really is a reason as to why we have TWO ears and only one mouth :) 

- Amanda

Listening More Than Speaking

I just started my masters in International Development last week and other than almost getting hit by a few cars flying in a direction I am not used to, secretly Googling very specific questions about Brexit under a few dinner tables, and deeply missing New York, it’s been going great!

I wanted to go to London for my degree because I wanted to be in a hyper-international environment. And this has been true (I am living with five other girls from Ireland, Portugal, Indonesia, and two from Italy). I feel like I am already reaping the benefits of this diversity. Not just of culture, but of...privilege. While I don’t want to dive deep into this loaded word, it has been on my mind a lot – really the danger of not incorporating it into the frameworks we use to think about big problems in our world.

Take for example - I am taking a course on modeling and projecting population growth. In class we looked at a graph of the fertility rate of England and saw there is a little dip around 2010. A lot of demographers attribute this to the fact that so many women are starting families later in life and are working rather than having children (something I had known of). But later that night I found this documentary about the rise of teenage pregnancy in the Philippines, some girls even having 5 children by the time they are 23 (something I had not heard of). These stories harshly contrast one another. To only hear one gives a very incorrect impression about the state of the world and could cause someone to make incorrect judgements.

Another example – in a discussion around education for development in one of my seminars, a Ghanaian student disagreed that education was all that important. A lot of his friends are highly qualified in Ghana, but there are not enough “high level” jobs to go around. This leads to unemployment and dissatisfaction and ultimately not a better quality of life. I don’t think anyone else in the seminar would have known that reality if he hadn't spoken.

If we want to think about the world in a truthful way, making sure there are plenty of seats at the table matters. Giving people a platform matters. Hearing as many stories as possible matters. Listening more than speaking matters.