Communication Literacy

Perhaps the phrase strikes you as redundant, but it’s the term I use to describe the broad range of communication skills that our students will need to successfully navigate the 21st-century world. And yet, the traditional focus on the 2 Rs (reading and writing) remains the entrenched standard - partly because those skills are relatively easy to test. Sadly, we appear to have created a generation who has only learned to write the 500-word exposition, with the teacher as the only audience. But this does not serve our children well, nor society at large.

For example, we should spend more time talking about video: (e.g., Teachers look to film to foster critical thinking).  It could be argued that in the last half-century, movies have had a greater  impact on the culture and mindset of modern society than the written word - but unless you’re a college film major, video communication is not studied in any meaningful way. As a result, we are largely unaware of its power and influence. (which is why tv commercials are so effective at selling soap and everything else.)

Here’s another example: there are few good jobs today that don’t require competence in public speaking, yet that’s not an area of focus, either. (Not conducive to standardized testing?)  Many of us consider standing behind a podium a fate worse than death. But what if speaking to an audience became a standard part of the education experience, beginning in the earliest grades? I’ve seen it, and it’s impressive when done well. (Aside: what if the focus of classroom participation became less about “knowing the right answer” and more about contributing to the learning of the entire class? A subject for another day.)

As anyone who’s sat through a dreadful powerpoint presentation can attest, there is much more to effective public communication than standing up and delivering information.
    You have to get the audience’s attention in the first 20 seconds, and hold it!
    You have to know your audience, and adjust your presentation accordingly.
     - occasionally, in real time
    You have to speak in a language your audience understands
      - particularly challenging for engineers and accountants!
To think all this can be assimilated in the standard first-year college course is beyond optimistic.

But even if your audience is as a small as one or two, there is a lot of communication to which we don’t pay enough attention. It’s been estimated that over 90% of person-to-person communication is non-verbal. (That’s why phone conferencing doesn’t work as well as face-to-face.) And at least 50% of communication involves listening - which means that the development of empathy needs to become a central part of the educational experience. 

Not to be confused with sympathy, having empathy for another perspective does not require that you agree with it.  Empathy is the ability to understand why another person thinks differently.  Of course, this has always been an important part of literature – what is the character’s motivation? – but seldom do we relate it (make it relevant?) to our own communications. But consider the impact on our civic culture – not to mention personal relationships - if we had more empathy!

Communication is closely tied to all the other 21st-century skills. Without communication you can’t have collaboration, and what good is critical-thinking or creativity if you can’t communicate your ideas?  Every aspect of civic literacy – an often overlooked, yet essential component of a quality education -  involves either communicating clearly, or listening clearly.

The ability to communicate effectively is right at the top of the list of the skills our students need, and what they need goes well beyond the reading and writing that we obsessively measure and test.