Be Ye Listeners: Book Review by Anne Knowles April 2025
- Todd Wright
- May 21
- 6 min read
Updated: May 22
‘Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn
Dr Boyce, PGOCS’s Executive Principal, emailed all staff recently with the text from Karl Bockmuehl’s address to the Nineteenth Convocation at Regent College titled Let Us Be Listeners.
We know we are called to love others as ourselves. This includes listening well, preferencing others, being fully present, not just waiting for others to finish so we can speak. We must become quiet, attentive, and receptive. This means we need to instruct in listening. As Bockmuehl asserted:
“Of all priorities in our teaching, the first is that we educate so as to help instil the habit and quality of listening in human hearts” (Bockmuehl, 1989, in E. Boyce, personal communication, 15 April 2025; also Bockmuehl, 1990).
The relevance to Drs. John Hattie and Lyn Sharratt‘s latest book Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn. EMPOWERING Visible Clarity (Hattie & Sharratt, 2025a) was unmistakable.
Attending to, understanding and valuing others by listening to their contributions (their personal viewpoints) predominates in Personal Viewpoints Pedagogy (PVP) curriculums implemented at PHCS (cf. Knowles, 2021a, p. 118, Figure 5.1; Knowles, 2021b; Smith & Knowles, 2021). This is akin to the instruction in listening recommended by Hattie and Sharratt.
Hattie and Sharratt address the complex needs of children by guiding educators through the process of infusing active, sensitive, and empathetic listening skills into the classroom and school culture. Their tools align with the universal Guiding Principles of compassion and patience, showing students that they are seen and valued.
The following review of their book (Hattie & Sharratt, 2025a) and related workshop feedback (Hattie & Sharratt, 2025b) show its worth as an addition to any educator’s library.
Book Review and Workshop Feedback
Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn. EMPOWERING Visible Clarity, by John Hattie, Lyn Sharratt. CORWIN PRESS INC. ISBN: 9781071973578, Released May 1, 2025, through Woodslane
In the ACEL workshop on this book, John Hattie and Lyn Sharratt (2025b) reiterated that:
“Listening … the process of actively receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken or non-verbal messages … is the most underrated, high impact, essential skill in education [author emphasis] (Hattie & Sharratt, 2025b, pp. 1, 33).
Through the lens of research expertise and practice these internationally acclaimed educators curate, analyze and share experiences of teachers and school leaders about the impact of listening. They assert that “listening is everyone’s responsibility”, declaring that the effect of a good listener on student learning is “electrifying!” (Hattie & Sharratt, 2025b, p. 1).
Unfortunately, listening suffers from the Cinderella Dilemma – it is overlooked. Unlike the other language skills of reading, writing and speaking, it receives little direct instructional attention, yet is essential for teaching and learning. By enhancing clarity, fostering trust, building positive relationships, attentive listening strengthens mutual understanding, and deepens student learning. These claims are supported by a significant body of research and a comprehensive case study of a NSW Central Coast school, where listening was confirmed as “enhancing the school’s improvement work” (Chapter 8).
From Chapter 1, Listening to Hear, onwards, the notion is emphasised, that “to be successful in education … both understanding and being understood are integral components” (Hattie & Sharratt, 2025b, p. 6). This means not only checking for understanding – that students have heard and comprehended - but also that students’ contributions are heard and understood by peers and teachers.
Valuing every student’s voice creates an inclusive environment, a classroom of trust where students are empowered to think aloud. It crucially requires that students see listening to others as “a fundamental mark of our respect” (Hattie & Sharratt 2025b, p.6). This involves being fully present and engaged, thoughtful questioning, courteously striving to comprehend and not judge, and being patient. These elements are analogous to Rogerian (Rogers, 1961) “reflective listening” embodying “unconditional positive regard” (Hattie & Sharratt, 2025b, pp. 7,8). Theories, such as psychotherapy which are premised on listening, are noted to abound in lessons for educators.
Listening Well Does Not Just Occur by Osmosis
Hattie and Sharratt emphasise that listening well does not just occur “by osmosis”. It requires explicit instruction and practice, assessment and feedback.
They encourage understanding of the complexity of communication and interpretation in the classroom by elaborating on different aspects and purposes of listening such as Roger’s categories of messages (Rogers, 1961) and S.M. Jones’ cognitive, affective and behavioural dimensions of listening (Jones, 2011). These are linked to Sharratt’s CLARITY Parameters research (Sharratt, 2019) and Hattie’s Visible Learning research (Hattie, 2023).
Direction on how to assess and enhance leader, teacher, and student listening skills come from chapters dedicated to identifying, teaching, and measuring the skills related “to listening to hear together in the classroom”.
Chapter 6, “Listening to Voices” which asks, “who is doing the most listening, talking, interpreting and thinking?” provided noteworthy take homes from the workshop with suggestions made as to how
Teachers could budget their class time better!
Based on research that shows teachers typically occupy around 90% of speaking time, Hattie & Sharratt suggest teachers could budget for more student talk and student questions. They need to listen to student’s learning to discern the impact of their own teaching. They need to question whether students are hearing what they think they are, to ask “which story are our students hearing?” (Knowles, 2025, p. 16); to determine whether they are “accomplishing co-constructed success criteria” in terms of the Assessment Waterfall Chart in Chapter 5 (Figure 5.2). This operational framework positions attentive listening as part of a culture of learning, assessment and feedback, with questions that clarify student understanding (e.g., Figure 1) and teacher effectiveness.
Figure 1. Assessment Waterfall Chart Student Questions
Listening – So Much More Than Hearing
Chapter 2’s Visible CLARITY 5-Ear Listening Model (Figure 2) is especially helpful. It illustrates that listening is so much more than hearing.
Figure 2. CLARITY Listening Model
This listening progression model focuses on tracking students’ listening skills from I attend, to I hear, to I understand, to I appraise, to I activate (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Listening Progression
For the case study participants in Chapter 8, tracking information helped teachers gain insights into student’s listening progress, proficiency, challenges and needs. Intentional listening enabled students to self-regulate - to first listen for understanding and then build positively on the ideas of others. It helped staff improve their own listening behaviours, to recognise bias, to identify their dominant mode of communicating and investigate the listening approaches that worked best in their classroom. For staff to see the impact of their practice, their shared success, suggested Listening Progression Model (Attending, Hearing, Understanding, Appraising, and Activating) was “a definite strategy for developing school or system improvement” (Hattie & Sharratt, 2025b, p. 31).
Why Buy this Book
Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn is an important work, bringing the underrated yet required skill of listening into focus for educators and researchers.
With students required to be listening up to 90% of lesson time it is difficult for them if they have not been taught how.
By providing informative, targeted, and immediately actionable concrete and practical instructional strategies and measures Hattie and Sharratt demonstrate how listening instruction can be put into classroom practice. Readers are aided by reflection prompts and mantras which help reinforce key learnings from each chapter. The intention is to support teachers, by ensuring accurate listening is understood, modelled, and practiced, enabling improvement and growth as verified through research and by Chapter 8’s case study.
Listening as a window into another person’s thinking, leads to real connection which is foundational to trust (Fisher, 2025). Prioritizing connection creates safe, nurturing classrooms for student learning (Jenkins, 2025). This text is a timely guide to the civility and self-awareness that listening can endow, with readers equipped to explicitly and successfully instruct for good listening.
References
Bockmuehl, K.(1990). Listening to the God Who Speaks: Reflections on God's Guidance from Scripture and the Lives of God's People. Helmers & Howard.
Fisher, J. (2025). The Next Conversation. Penguin.
Hattie, J. (2023). Visible Learning: The Sequel: A Synthesis of Over 2,100 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement 1st Edition. Routledge.
Hattie, J. & Sharratt, L. (2025a) Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn. EMPOWERING Visible Clarity. Corwin Press.
Hattie, J. & Sharratt, L. (2025b, April 8). Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn. EMPOWERING Visible Clarity [Workshop & Proceedings]. Australian Council of Educational Leaders (ACEL) Event, Rydges Darling Square, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Jones, S.M. (2011). Supportive Listening. The International Journal of Listening, 25. 85-103. https://doi.org/10.1080/10904018.2011.536475
Knowles, A.L. (2021a). Reimagining practice by identifying and applying conference take-homes. In Beverly J. Christian & Peter W. Kilgour (eds), Revealing Jesus in the Learning Environment: Evidence & Impact, 115-150. Avondale Academic Press.
Knowles, A.L. (2021b). Using student drawings to evaluate change in other-focused thinking, reflecting Philippians 1:3-4. In Beverly J. Christian & Peter W. Kilgour (eds) Revealing Jesus in the Learning Environment: Evidence & Impact, 151-194. Avondale Academic Press.
Knowles, A. (2025). Disrupting thinking and practice for better teaching and student formation. The Christian Teachers Journal (February), 16-18.
Rogers, C. R. (1961). On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. London: Constable.
Sharratt, L. (2019). CLARITY. What Matters MOST in Learning, Teaching, and Leading. Sage Publications.
Smith T., & Knowles, A. (2021). Personal Viewpoints Pedagogy and counterfactual thinking: Year 7 students’ development of agency, resilience, critical thinking and fourth-person perspective. International Journal of Christianity and Education, 25(2), 215-239. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056997120966355
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