Aiding Communication in Society

1071 Words3 Pages

Communication is the key. Individuals most capable of communicating in a particular situation succeed. As a societal philosophy, this position might appear fair. Social constructs are pretty difficult to establish when people are not able to speak to one another. This thinking, however, is firmly connected to a rather large assumption. One must assume that those persons that communicate the best are actually contributing something important to a discourse. In other words, strong communicators must equate with those individuals that have the best ideas. We know this assumption is false. People with the best understanding of a topic are usually not the most capable of communicating it. Oddly, we realize several reasons exist for this fact. Language differences among those in social situations account for tremendous amounts of communication concerns among people. Learning disabilities account for an enormous level of communication problems, as well.

Every grouping of civilized people, therefore, must decide what matters most to it. Does this skill of communication matter most? Or, does the authoring of the best ideas matter more? I, for one, place a greater value on ideas. This position is the result of my personal belief that better ideas are the progeny of true learning. Most importantly, I recognize that this stance obligates me, as an educator, to support the transformation of teaching practices in two ways. First and foremost, teaching must be organized to move students from lives where they consume information to existences in which they produce new thinking. Next, teaching must support each student’s capacity to communicate to more and more audiences. These methods of transformation align clearly with the...

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...information to produce new knowledge. In short, these individuals understood the information better because they could use it. And, this fact bolstered their confidence of having expert knowledge on the topic. They were just not able to communicate it. As Richard Elmore stated, “it is hard for people to collaborate when they have no common experience or common language”. It is not practical in today’s cosmopolitan communities to expect that people will unite around a singular language. But, we all unite around the experience of understanding something highly but being misunderstood when we tried to explain it. As a cohort, we might transform American education if we can convince our fellow citizens that by using differentiation as an instructional strategy we can help them find their voice and help them to support their children finding their voice, as well.

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