You don't have to be a superhuman listener to hear what's being said when a student looks you in the eye with tears and says, "I don't wanna go home." But you

You don't have to be a superhuman listener to hear what's being said when a student looks you in the eye with tears and says, "I don't wanna go home." But you do have to be a superhuman listener when you have a thousand things on your mind, several students out of arm's reach yelling at each other, some students leaving the building without permission and without bus passes, etc etc--and then you see a marooned student who looks like he/she doesn't want to go home. Ultimately, if you're working one-on-one with a student who says he/she doesn't want to go home, in theory all you have to be is caring and curious, to help. But when you're in a public or charter school and you're always occupied you'll benefit from training (in e.g. crisis prevention), and sensitization to those key phrases. Those two things plus experience lead to intuition.