One of our alumni came by this week, and we were sharing stories of crazy college professors. This was after school, and there were only adults around, so we were giggling at these stories as adults, looking back on our common experiences with unusual people. But, it made me remember being a little afraid of my college years in the years before I got there because I had overheard similar conversations by adults. My dad had told me about professors who would do things like write with one hand while erasing with their left. I remember thinking, "I'm a good student, but I'm not that good. How am I going to do this?" Of course, when I arrived at college, I found that most professors are mostly normal and teach in mostly normal ways. But those are boring stories, so you only share things about the strange ones.
On a similar note, when I was a kid, I was a little afraid of growing up. It seemed like every adult I knew hated their job. At least, they talked about it like they did. When I was a teenager, I did a little survey as my fellow choir members arrived at church. I asked each of them about their job. I got a wide range of sighs and groans until Ron Butler came in. When I asked him about his job, he grinned and talked about living with "spizerinctum," a word he made up for how energized he felt by his work. It was greatly encouraging to hear an adult talk with such joy about the work he was doing, and it was clear that he loved it because he believed it mattered.
It can be easy to think that kids are not paying attention when adults talk to each other. After all, they give every impression that they are not listening, and it is frustrating when they seem not to have heard something we explicitly told them. But they are picking up more than you think they are. When you call a politician evil (not just wrong, but demonic) while watching the news, they absorb that; and since they don't have the experience to judge whether something is sarcasm or hyperbole, they come to school and share your speculations as gospel truth. When you skewer the pastor during Sunday lunch, they hear you and learn to disrespect all spiritual authority (and you want to be careful because you are one of the spiritual authorities they are learning to disrespect). Divorced parents often talk negatively about their ex to other adults while their children are in the room. You think they aren't listening, but they come to my classroom the next day talking about it. When I worked in daycare, there was a three-year-old in the building who had a colorful vocabulary, using words his parents had used at home. His parents were a bit embarrassed by the fact their toddler told us something was BS (except he used the whole word) in his high-pitched baby voice. He had heard them and didn't know that there were words many choose not to use in public. It is not possible to tell when they are listening and when they are not.
Not all of the examples of this happening are bad. I am currently on track to pay my house off ten years early because of a conversation I overheard between two other adults. One man advised another to always pay whatever extra amount he could afford on his house in order to pay down the principal and save on interest. I wasn't part of the conversation, but I happened to be in the room and thought that sounded like a wise practice. As far as I know, the man in that conversation does not know that I have benefitted from his advice to someone else. I have had casual conversations with juniors about their AP class choices that younger students nearby take as advice three years later. I only know this because their parents say to me, "She remembered your advice about . . . " When I say, "I don't remember talking to her about that," they tell me about a conversation I don't remember that I had with someone else (My Lord, the power we wield as teachers should be taken seriously).
I've rambled a bit, but here's my point. Be aware and be careful. They hear most of what you say, you don't know what context they are putting around your words in their minds. They take more in than you think, and they repeat it to others. It can affect their decisions and may mean they carry worries you aren't aware of. Don't assume that kids can't hear you, even when they have earbuds in their ears. Don't say, "Oh, he's never paying attention" because he often is. If you don't want it to be part of his brain, don't say it.
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