Learning to Notice (or Noticing to Learn)

“Oblivious” is a word I’ve heard many a parent use to describe their teenager. Sometimes it feels like kids stumble through life completely unaware of what’s going on around them. If you’ve ever followed a freshman through the halls of a high school and have been whacked in the face by a backpack as he whips around to talk to a friend or have been stuck behind a clog of congregating teenagers in the middle of a hallway thoroughfare, you know what I mean. Teens will overlook a pile of trash they left on a lunch table as they wander off, distracted by the next shiny object that catches their eye.  

We live in a world where we are bombarded with stimuli. Noises, images, smells, and sensations assault our senses from the moment we awake until we try to turn everything off so we can get some sleep. The barrage of sensory information is so overwhelming that we struggle to discern what’s essential and what’s extraneous. We speed through our days without pausing to examine our surroundings, rush through tasks just to have the satisfaction of checking something off our growing to-do lists, and multitask 24/7.

The result of all of this is that we have forgotten the importance of noticing—of pausing for a while to pay focused attention to something, of looking and listening intently, of sifting through the clutter to turn our gaze to one thing and to give the details time to sink in. The endangered art of noticing is something that can and should be taught and practiced in every classroom. Teaching students how to increase their awareness and their stamina for observing will sharpen skills that will help them in all facets of their lives.

My brother, a musician, listens to music in a different way than I do. Kevin hears how the instruments work together in a composition to create the listener’s experience: the nuances of the bass line, the harmonies, the chord progressions, the choice of key, the meter, and elements I don’t even know enough about to include on this list. These are things I, too, could learn to hear and appreciate in music if (1) someone guided me at first to teach me how to listen like a musician and (2) I shut up, quit humming along, and paid focused attention. With guidance, I could learn to listen like a musician.

The act of noticing takes different forms in every subject area. Visual artists don’t look at a painting of a tree and only see a tree. They notice positive and negative space, shading, tone, line, color, texture, and more. Athletes and dancers possess an awareness of their own bodies that goes far beyond “Ouch, that hurts” and “Boy, am I out of shape,” and this allows them to make adjustments, respond to cues given by their bodies, and repeat motions and postures that increase their success or effectiveness. A sociologist, a historian, a psychologist, an economist, and a political scientist would all notice different things if they watched the same political debate. Mathematicians and scientists both hone keen skills of observation to solve problems and collect data, yet the things they notice differ. Neither one succeeds if they rush into solving or drawing conclusions without spending some time taking in all the details.

Proficient readers in every subject area notice the clues and cues authors leave for them to guide them through the text, assist them in comprehension and reflection, deepen their thinking about the topic, and signal what is to come. Once students know what to look for and practice awareness as they read, looking for these common signposts becomes second nature, but until then it takes practice and guidance. Kylene Beers and Bob Probst share their expertise to help teachers orchestrate noticing-while-reading in Notice and Note, Reading Nonfiction, and Disrupting Thinking, three outstanding texts I recommend to any teacher.    

As educators, we have to teach our students what noticing looks like in our subject areas and coach them so they can learn and practice. To do that, we must have a clear vision of what noticing means to us; we have to practice that noticing ourselves. Then, we have to develop open-ended prompts or questions that elicit responses from our students. Allow them time to look, listen, feel, smell, and/or taste (depending on what they’re noticing, of course). Let them jot down their observations; thinking on paper helps students collect their thoughts. Then, let them share, preferably in pairs or small groups so that everyone gets the chance to practice before they share with the entire room. Resist the temptation to conclude with the “correct” answer of what they should have noticed. If we must share something, we should consider limiting our response to one or two observations and frame our comments with a sentence stem such as, “Something I noticed this time was. . . ,” which reinforces the idea that with more time and repeated observations, people notice new things.

We could even make this into something resembling a game. Challenge students to notice things they think others won’t, and play “Did You Notice?” Students can take turns in pairs, triads, or table groups asking each other “Did you notice. . .?” in an attempt to point out something others didn’t catch. Students can add others’ ideas to their own notes to compile a more comprehensive list of details and observations.

Describing something in detail—adding adjectives—is a strategy Dr. Ed Burger suggests in his new book Making Up Your Own Mind: Thinking Effectively Through Creative Puzzle-Solving. Burger advocates approaching any problem (real-world or academic) by observing carefully and listing as many descriptors as possible. As students brainstorm words to describe the problem or situation, they may accidentally stumble on a clue that could unlock a solution or open an unexpected avenue of thinking about the topic.

Noticing can be a key element in learning to do things in a more professional way. Anyone can become a writing teacher by getting students to notice how real-world writers write. Teach students how to use texts as writing mentors: Notice what the writer did and try it yourself. Want to write better poetry? Find some poets you admire, notice what they do, and attempt it. Need to write a resume? Gather a few from the internet, notice their features, draft a list of desired traits or elements, and write your own. Unsure of how to write a science report? Read several published exemplars. Notice how the writer structures the report, what is included and not included, the type of language used, and how the report is formatted. Let the good examples show you how it’s done.

This same strategy would work in so many other fields from decorating a cake to sketching a portrait to throwing a javelin to making a website. Notice how the pros do it. Break down their technique into steps or strategies, and start practicing them.

Metacognition, or awareness of what is going on in your head when you do or think about something, is another way of noticing that has immense value to students. Prompting students to notice what they did to successfully (or unsuccessfully) navigate the learning, solve a problem, create a product, or complete a task reinforces and clarifies best practices and sheds light on what to avoid next time. Better self-reflection leads to ongoing growth and improvement. It’s a habit that benefits us in every aspect of our lives, from job performance to interpersonal relationships.

There is so much power in noticing. It’s up to us, as people who care about the future lives of the students we teach, to help them recognize the value of taking the time and making the effort to pay attention. If we can help them hone their skills at observing and convince them to carve out space for noticing, there’s no telling what they might be able to do.