Why People Are Not Listening to You

"Why aren't my students listening to me?!!"

As a young Teacher, straight out of school, I was barely older than the students I was teaching. I was armed with a Bachelor in English Lit/Comp and a pre-Law minor with grad credit, and at that time, a post-baccalaureate teaching certification (which was half of a Masters). So... I was super educated (and continued to get hyper-educated over the next 20 years) - but was completely unprepared to deal with actual human beings.

What took me nearly 20 years to figure out was that I had no idea why they weren't listening to me because I was spending all my time trying to tell them everything I knew (which was just a sign that I was excited about sharing what I knew), but I wasn't listening to what they wanted to know.

Fast forward to me now and I have a Masters in Psych and several certifications in education, fitness, nutrition, and mental health... and 3 teenagers of my own, and am back in the classroom with teenagers. What I have learned is that relationships are the cornerstone of my life.

FIRST RULE: You can't talk to someone who has no buy-in to your message. If they don't care about botany or stamps, they won't care how much you know.

SECOND RULE: People will buy-in when they get how your message will help them reach their goals. Maybe your knowledge intimidates them, or they think you will judge them.

THIRD RULE: If you really want to make a difference, you need to get to know people and create relationships with them. This means you need to ASK them what they like, get to know what they WANT to know, and then figure out if your skill set can help them GET there.

While I don't regret all my education and experience, none of it will help me as much as the simple rules of building relationships and creating a buy-in with students and clients that will help us both reach our goals of being awesome.

<3, Jonni Khat