Lori Falce: Supreme Court hearing needs more listening

“I did it!” my kid said to his screen.

The answer sounded approving, but I couldn’t really tell what she was saying.

My son is taking a computer coding class. His teacher is a delightful woman from India who is encouraging and supportive. Neither of them really understand a word the other is saying. But somehow, they are making it work — finding common ground in bending the digital world to their will.

It seems that when you want to accomplish something, whether that is teaching a 12-year-old boy to write computer languages or getting someone who isn’t your Luddite mother to understand your interest in video-game building, you find a way to bridge the gaps in the way.

Why doesn’t that happen more?

My screens this week have been filled with election stumping and Supreme Court hearings, sometimes simultaneously. My email has brimmed with angry interpretations of both.

What has been nowhere is an attempt to understand what someone else is saying.

In the Senate judiciary hearings, there has been a lot of talking and a lot posturing but very little listening and almost no acknowledgment of someone else’s perspective.

The Republican majority is making proactive strikes against what they believe will be attacks on nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s religion. The Democratic minority seems to blame Barrett for President Trump’s nomination and the fact that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has broken his own precedent in allowing the process to proceed amid the election.

Everyone is speaking their own language, and there is no attempt to translate.

The same can be said of the election and the series of “ah ha!” moments and would-be oneupmanship that makes up the final weeks of the march toward the ballot box. Facts are assumed to be lies if they don’t come from the preferred news outlet, and statements are held as gospel if they come from the favored party.

There is complete rejection of the idea that candidates might not tell the truth all the time, even if you like them.

How are kids able to try harder to understand the unintelligible than adults are?

My son isn’t the world’s most buckled-down student by a long shot. He’s biased toward things he likes — YouTube and virtual reality and finding new ways to irritate his mother with technology.

But he’s still paying attention and making an effort, and it’s paying off. He is actually picking up the coding and is creating an app. Listening is leading to learning.

If a 12-year-old boy and a middle-aged Indian woman 8,000 miles and two languages apart can figure things out and get stuff done, there is absolutely no excuse for what is happening in Washington — and my inbox — every day.