Discourse over social and political issues (and thus health issues) today is fraught with fighting, name-calling, finger-pointing, and a general lack of cooperation. It is no wonder that approval ratings for Congress hit an all-time historic low this summer.
In part as a response to this tumultuous state of affairs, some of my college friends recently started an organization called Listen First Project. Their mission is simple:
"Listen First Project seeks to facilitate greater understanding, respect and cooperation by encouraging the timeless but abandoned practice of listening to each other, regardless of politics, religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education or any other distinction. We believe in the power of listening to transform our discourse and change the world."
Image source: http://www.listenfirstproject.org
My dad loves to tell a story from my toddler years about the time I was chattering away on a long car trip, when suddenly it grew very quiet. Wondering why I made such an abrupt end to my soliloquy, my parents turned around to ask if I was ok. My response: "My mouth is tired."
And thus kicked off my illustrious career as a talker.
Listening has always been a challenge for me. It is not that I am uninterested in what others have to say. Quite the opposite! I get so enthusiastic, however, that I feel the need to jump in and respond to every....single....thing someone shares. When someone makes a statement, I often feel compelled to pose the arguments for the alternative position just to see if they can find any common ground with the opposition and to understand better what they think. I love engaging others and being engaged at what I perceive to be a fun and challenging level.
(Note to others: it turns out that not everyone enjoys this or feels respected and heard through this type of dialogue. Who'd'a thunk it?)
Despite my loquacious tendencies, Listen First Project has really struck a chord with me. When I think about the state of American politics, I sense that common decency has been lost somewhere along the way and is needed to bring us back on track.
Although I recognize the imperative for listening in the broader political realm, as I reflect on the above stories and personal traits embodied by my everyday experiences, I am realizing more and more that the first place listening needs to start is with me.
One thing I tried earlier this year was one week without expressing opinions - just to see if I could do it and come out alive. Most days, I failed at least once, but it made me much more aware of my own talking instincts and habits. Why do I feel the need to be heard on anything and everything? Will the world stop or people go on perpetually uneducated if I do not inform them of my views? As it turns out, the world kept turning and people kept learning and growing that week! In many ways, holding back my own voice made me more aware of the power that voice has when I do use it.
I was also called out by a friend for interrupting during a group project meeting last semester, and I really took it to heart to try to adjust this bad habit. I still struggle with interrupting, but being more conscious of it has meant that I now catch myself in the act more often, apologize, and ask the other person to please continue expressing their thoughts, because I do care.
Other places that learning to listen well has been making an appearance in my life include learning how to teach well (pedagogy) by facilitating other students in having discussions of their ideas, administering surveys with Best Babies Zone in East Oakland to understand community members' perceptions of their experiences, and even learning in my prayer life how to sit quietly with God, rather than simply listing my requests.
Listening is one of the most important things I can do, both for my personal relationships and my professional success. In public health, understanding health concerns from the perspectives of the communities they affect, listening to community ideas for solutions, and investing in solutions that have community buy-in are often significantly more important to community thriving and successful interventions than any expertise or ideas I bring to an issue.
Learning to listen well will undoubtedly be a lifelong process for me.
I am excited to see where Listen First Project goes. To learn more about their efforts, check out the Listen First website, Facebook page, and Twitter feed @ListenFirstProj.
Now, I would love to hear your ideas! How have you fostered the practice of listening well in public discourse, and perhaps more importantly, in your own day-to-day life? Note: Another resource I have found helpful on this topic for those interested in the intersection of listening and faith is Richard Mouw's book, "Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World."
In light of the passage of Amendment One in North Carolina, I started doing some reading around various sides of the issue, and I came across a very interesting blog, which I wanted to share. Justin Lee is the Executive Director of the Gay Christian Network, and I appreciate his efforts to get the conversation going and to keep it positive.
Click here to read his response to the passage of the bill.
Click here to read an extremely interesting and insightful interview with the writer of the above linked post.
No matter your beliefs on homosexuality or your stance on the definition of marriage, I think the ideas expressed by Justin may strike a chord with you in some way. He is articulate, respectful, empathetic, and nuanced, which makes for encouraging and thoughtful discussion.
I was recently lamenting to my friends that sometimes I wish this were a blog about politics so that I could rant and rave about the lunacy being spewed by the current presidential candidates. Then I decided that I could find a health-related theme for the subject about which I would like to rant as an excuse to do it anyway. So here goes my rant about Santorum's infamous recent comments about higher education.
Let me start by saying that I am registered as a political independent. I have voted for members of both parties, and it is rare that I agree with either party 100% on an issue. But on this particular issue, I don't see much room to argue with Obama. I know full well that education makes a difference, not only in lifetime earning potential, but also in human health!
For those who haven't heard yet, Rick Santorum called Obama a "snob" for reportedly "saying that everyone should go to college." This was hard for me to believe, but here is an actual video of the speech in Michigan.
Of course, after hearing such a strange insult to our president, I decided to find out what Obama actually said. According to a Politico article, the quote was, "I ask every American to commit to one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever that training will be, every American will need more than a high school diploma."
It's hard for me to see how this quote translates into liberal snobbery mandating that everyone must attain a degree. That is clearly a limited and disingenuous reading of what was said. Obama was discussing the fact that increasingly, we are competing globally with countries who are focusing on education. Years down the road, it may become more and more difficult to find a job with only a high school diploma. This is not to say that people who do not go to college are somehow less important, not hard working, or otherwise bad. It is simply to state the fact that job prospects are better for those who attend some form of higher education, and this is becoming more true with each generation.
Consider the current economic issues in our country. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average unemployment rate in 2010 was 8.2%. However, among those with a bachelor's degree (and no master's) it was 5.4% compared to 10.3% for those with only a high school diploma.
One article I read in the San Francisco Chronicle said that the median annual pay of those 25 years and older with a bachelor's degree is $56,472. That is 70% higher than those without a diploma. That means a person with a college degree may individually earn about the same as the average household income (presumably a measure of the total earnings of multiple persons living together) in our country. According to the same article, 30% percent of adults now hold college degrees, and 94% of parents with children under age 18 expect their children to go to college.
Now to be fair, I do think there are people who are prejudiced against those of a different social class or education level. It's great to speak out against that sort of intolerance. And I agree with Santorum that there are plenty of hard-working people at important jobs without one minute of higher education. I think many Americans, especially in small towns across the nation or in manufacturing centers like Detroit, would echo sentiments of pride in their communities, regardless of the average education levels in the areas. It is even true that some people have gone on to make millions without a degree (Bill Gates, for example - and for him, it was billions). As the Montgomery Gentry song, "Where I Come From," says, "That old man right there in the rocking chair at the courthouse square - I'll tell you now he could buy your fancy car with hundred dollar bills. Don't let those faded overalls fool ya'. He made his millions without one day of schoolin." Pride in your job and loyalty to your friends and family of all social classes are beautiful things. I agree wholeheartedly that education does not make one person better than another. The idea that our worth as a person is not determined by our social status, income, or level of education resonates strongly with my understanding of humanity. Amen to equality before God!
But the fact remains that statistics show average quality of life increases with higher education. No, that does not mean for every person every time. It means for most people most of the time. And I do not in my heart believe that Obama is among the ranks of the socioeconomically prejudiced for acknowledging this. I find it especially improbable that there is much truth behind the accusations of elitism given that Obama's life before running for Congress involved working with residents in the south side of Chicago.
Santorum also berated higher education for "indoctrinating" young people into liberalism. I would agree that there is a left bent in higher education as a whole, but there are a few things to point out here. (1) Not every professor holds the same views. (2) If conservatives do not obtain higher ed degrees, then they cannot become professors. So it stands to reason that if Santorum sees a problem of disproportionate representation among college faculty, he should be encouraging more conservatives to get degrees, not fewer. Hey, if there were enough of them banded together, they could even start new colleges. (3) As my husband intelligently pointed out to me the other day, colleges not only produce liberal thinkers, they also produce deeper conservative thinkers who are able to counter balance the arguments of liberalism. Without a strong understanding of politics, philosophy, economics, and the like, it is pretty difficult to make a believable case against an expert in one of those fields. Please do not mistake me for saying that education is the sole predictor of good ideas. That is certainly not true. But how does Santorum intend to fight "elite leftist" ideas if he has not also read the same texts, analyzed the same arguments, etc.? How can a person condemn a book he or she has never seen? How can an individual make a point against a philosophy he or she has never heard? We need more thoughtful thinkers of all political persuasions, not fewer.
So you may be wondering what this has to do with "mind and body musings?" Well, I found something that clearly justifies this entire rant! Education is also a predictor of....drum roll....health! According to the National Poverty Center, better educated people have lower morbidity for many chronic illnesses and higher overall life expectancy. The NPC also states, "Health behaviors alone cannot account for health status differences between those who are less educated and those who have more years of education." The policy brief I read suggested that some likely contributing factors to the health gap are complicated relationships between education and family background, effects of poor health in childhood, greater resources associated with more education, a learned appreciation for positive health behaviors, and social networks, among other mechanisms.
As I discussed in a previous blog post, education is also related to health literacy. To reiterate some of the statistics from that piece, the National Assessment of Adult Literacy targeted a portion of its latest assessment using health care related questions. The study found that among adults who never completed high school, approximately 49% had below basic health literacy, compared to 15% of adults who completed a high school diploma with no post-secondary education and just 3% of adults with a bachelor's degree. Low health literacy can inhibit someone's ability to read health pamphlets, follow medication instructions, make medical decisions when caring for a loved one, understand post-operative instructions, or complete other similar tasks.
In another related post, I described some of the connections between food insecurity and obesity. Since food insecurity is a socioeconomic issue, and lack of education is a predictor of lower earnings, these problems are a likely link between education and health. Some of the issues I discussed in more detail in that post include fewer full service grocery stores in lower income neighborhoods, lower quality produce, a greater prevalence of fast food, fewer parks or recreation centers, and less access to health care, among other concerns.
I believe that Santorum was misguided in his Obama name-calling on the higher education topic. He was speaking to a crowd in Detroit, and it seems likely to me that he was catering to his audience. I'm not even going to get into Santorum's campaign goals from past years related to higher education (but please do Google the topic - he used to think college was a good idea). Suffice it to say that a quick glance at Santorum's own life and credentials makes it clear that his education got him where he is today and that he intends to provide the same for his children (just like 94% of parents hope for their own kids, as mentioned above).
As LZ Granderson of CNN put it, "Granted, some of us are gullible enough to give each other high-fives because Rick Santorum called Obama a snob for promoting a college education. But the rest of us look at 'Slick Rick's' college degree, law degree and MBA, and the fact that he's sending his kids to college and owns at least six properties, and has earned millions, and wonder - What is he talking about?"
