Sunday, June 14, 2020
By:
Hello, all.
At the end of last week’s blog post, I promised a humorous, meaningful story on listening. As someone who technically works in the government now, I know just how much constituents appreciate it when politicians keep their promises. Last I checked, I’m not a politician, but that means I don’t have any checks or balances holding me back from delivering on my promise. So here goes.
While I was an undergraduate, a few classmates and I spent a semester tutoring at an international school in Cleveland. There are so many stories I could tell about the amazing students I met there and the experience overall, but one story stands out in my mind. Let me preface this by saying that my Spanish skills are not very good. With my minimal language skills, a friend, who we will call Beyoncé, and I set out to tutor an elementary school student in English.
The young gentleman had only just begun learning English, so Beyoncé and I set about quizzing him on the spelling of a few nouns. Since it was an international school, there were myriad games and activities for us to use. The activity we settled on had pictures of common three-letter objects with the spelling beneath the picture. The catch was that one of the letters in the object’s spelling was missing. Our job was to help the student find the letter that completed the spelling.
Whenever the student started struggling, Beyoncé tried giving him hints that would lead him to the right letter. We’d have a picture of a bed for example, and Beyoncé would say something like, “this is where you sleep at night.” Come to think of it, they were some really odd hints. Clearly, he knew what the objects were, he just needed to think through the translation from Spanish to English. Every time Beyoncé offered a hint, the student ‘guessed’ the letter K.
This letter came up in nearly every picture and subsequent conversation it seemed, even though most words were missing vowels. In fact, the letter came up so often, I could visibly see Beyoncé getting frustrated. It was at this point that I really started listening. I quickly realized that K was actually qué. The student didn’t think that the place you sleep at night is spelled bkd in English; he was probably thinking, what the heck are these kids talking about, which manifested in a simple interrogative, what?, or in Spanish, ¿qué?
You might be thinking, what? yourself. How does all this relate to Congress and my experience, you might ask. My what a wonderful question. Everyone who works in Congress, especially the unelected intern, must listen to understand. I am but one person, in a nation of over 330 million. My experiences and beliefs are largely unique to me, but legislation isn’t written for me alone. It’s written for 330 million Americans with their own unique experiences, beliefs, and struggles. I might want to write a masterful piece of public policy, but if I don’t actually understand the problem, if I haven’t listened to and understood those experiencing that issue first hand, then it’s more likely than not that the masterful policy would, in reality, be a masterful waste of time.
I have my own set of shoes, so I can’t necessarily try yours on. However, that shouldn’t deter me from asking you how your pair fits. Asking is the easy part, a qué here or there never hurt anyone after all, but if I’m going to ask, I sure as heck better listen.
Stay well,
Kyle Blasinsky