Rethinking the concept of "listening to the child": from an educational act to a fundamental experience of encountering the other

Abstract

This article offers a philosophical rethinking of what it means to listen to the child , not as a communicative skill or an instrumental strategy for facilitating learning, but as an ethical encounter with the Other. The point of departure is the assumption that, within many educational relationships, listening is already constrained by adult expectations, intentions, and pedagogical aims. As a result, the child’s voice is often interpreted, regulated, or appropriated before it is genuinely heard. Adopting a conceptual – analytical approach and drawing on a Levinasian understanding of ethics, the article reconceives listening as an act that does not originate in the adult’s pedagogical will, but in the call of the Other— a call that places the teacher or parent in a position of ethical responsibility. From this perspective, listening to the child is understood as a response to presence and voice, rather than as a technique of guidance, control, or interpretation. The article argues that when listening is approached as ethical responsiveness, it neither implies the erasure of the adult subject nor leads to an idealization of absolute child autonomy. Instead, it opens a space of ethical openness in which the educational subject withdraws from positions of dominance, pre-judgment, and mastery. Rather than proposing practical prescriptions or adding to a repertoire of communicative competencies, this study seeks to cultivate a philosophical sensitivity toward the child — one that may be described as an attempt to listen to each child as if they were the only child in the world . Although such an orientation may initially appear merely inspirational, it holds the potential to prompt deeper reflection on educational ethics, the language of curriculum, and the meaning of shared existence within educational life.