Take 5: 18 July 2017 by Ms Foo Lee Wee

Good morning Mdm Tan, Mr Lee, Mr Chung, Teachers and Gessians,

Have you heard of this nursery rhyme ‘Five Little Ducks’? Some of you might have especially those with young toddlers or children?

It goes something like this:

Five little ducks
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said
“Quack, quack, quack.”
But only four little ducks came back.

It will go on for another four stanzas and each time, there was one less duck returning home with mother duck.

When I heard it recently, I tried to relate it the five little ducks to Mr Chaobuduo (差不多) , which I introduced to you during last year’s my High-5 sharing. In case you have forgotten, and also for the benefits of the Sec 1s and new teachers who just join the school, let me briefly introduce Mr Chaobuduo (差不多).

Mr Chaobuduo (差不多) means, depending on the context, “good-enough”, “close-enough”, or “just about”. In Chinese, it is literally defined as “difference not much”. Mr Chabuduo (差不多) of course was meant to represent laziness in human form. His appearance resembles yours and mine. He has two eyes but does not see things very clearly. He has two ears – but they don’t listen very well. He has a nose and a mouth, but does not distinguish much between different smells and tastes. His head isn’t particularly small – however – his memory isn’t very good.

Hu Shih (胡适), who is a Chinese philosopher and scholar, used Mr Chabuduo(差不多) to describe how China during his time was responding to the likes of Mr Chabuduo (差不多) in terms of education, work, and discipline and also to give the Chinese people during his time a grave warning about how a societal cancer of laziness was spreading and must be suppressed.

So I am drawing a parallel between Mr Chabuduo(差不多) and the five little ducks. I think both suffered from an attitude problem – not listening with their head and heart. I think the little ducks did not come back maybe because they were not playing attention to Mother Duck’s instructions.

This week is the start of the GCE O Level MT Listening Comprehension for 4EXP and 5NA, and also the CL Oral Exam for 4NT. This week is also the week we commemorate and celebrate Racial Harmony Day. It is held annually in school on 21st July unless it falls on a weekend. RHD is carried out to mark Singapore’s 1964 Race Riots which was triggered by unfounded hearsay rumours and distorted information. What do all these school events have in common? Yes, it involves listening. And listening comes before responding.

So it is for a reason that we are given two eyes to see, two ears to listen, but only one mouth to speak, one heart and one head to think. What is the reason, you may ask in your mind.

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. We also have to know that our eyes, ears, mouth and heart work together by the brain to provide us different types of information about our surrounding. This information can allow us to respond to changes in our environment.

It seems to me that listening and speaking go together like a pair. The order is to be quick to listen and slow to speak. Listening has to come first before speaking.

Can we truly engage in the art of active listening in the fast-paced, high-tech world that we live in? How does it look like when effective listening is done? It is believed that if we can be of one mind, one heart, one passion, one purpose, one impulse, we are close to reaching the art of listening.

In the midst of assumptions, roaming mind and external and internal distractions from the internet and hand phones, listening has to be intentionally worked out.

We can train ourselves to listen effectively.

1: When we listen with your ears, you have to stay focused, do not let your mind wander, engage in the process with an open mind.

2: When you listen with your eyes, you are paying attention to the non-verbal cues. A lot of things are not said in words during communication. Popular research showed that three major elements influence communication. Words cover 7%, tone of voice compose 35% while the remaining 53% come from visual clues. In reality, what is not said, and how things are said, carry much more weight than what is actually said. For those of you taking your oral exam later or soon, your non-verbal language can either make or break you. The way you hold your head and body will leave an impression on the panel of oral examiners. How you are seated and facial expressions will influence their evaluation of your confidence and disposition. Leave behind a good impression with effective use of your body language.

3: When you listen with your heart, you are listening with empathy. You will take into account perspectives and put yourselves in other person’s shoes for the moment. In Stephen Covey’s words, empathetic listening is not listening until you understand. It is listening until the other person feels understood. In other words, empathetic listening is an effort to not only seeking to understand and answer the question but also to connect with the questioner by entering into his/her world.

4: When you listen with respect, you listen wholeheartedly and would not be distracted by other things.

I discovered just recently that there is a six stanza to the ‘Five Little Ducks’ nursery rhyme.

Sad mother duck
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
The sad mother duck said
“Quack, quack, quack.”
And all of the five little ducks came back.

With training and discipline, we can be like the five little ducks who eventually could discern the definitive and distinctive voice in the midst of competing voices and overwhelming noises in the world that they, like us, live in.

Thank you.