Communications: An Integral Part Of Education
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Communication: An Integral Part of Education
Communication is a skill that everyone needs to acquire and learn how to utilize effectively. In any given profession, communication is required regardless of whether or not the field is a creative, professional, or strictly business. Especially in the field of elementary education do the teachers and staff need to possess exemplary communication skills. This is not only with the students but as well as with fellow faculty members and the parents involved in the community and school. All areas of communication are vital to be an effectual educator but none as important as understanding the culture of the teaching environment, using rhetoric in class lectures and lessons, and becoming a valued and skilled public speaker. With the three above qualities mastered, only then can an educator truly be seen as an effective communicator.
To honestly and successfully understand culture, the educator must know that culture is “a system of ideas, values, beliefs, structures, and practices that is communicated by one generation to the next and that sustains a particular way of life” (Wood, 2002, p.95). In appreciating and analyzing this, a teacher must then now use this basic understanding of culture and formulate their lesson plans and agendas to encompass the variant cultures in any given school setting. Not only America, but Texas too has become a melting pot of varying cultures from all expanses of the world. This makes educating at this time very fascinating and exciting but potentially frustrating. Language and cultural barriers often create obstacles in the classroom which makes teaching in a normal and systematical approach ineffective. Cultural barriers can most easily be tackled by teaching other children about the importance of culture and in teaching them “tolerance, in which a person accepts differences, although he or she may not approve of or even understand them” (Wood, 2002, 117). Not only in culture but in just plain communication skills, students learn very quickly important ways of communicating effectively and ineffectively. Once thrust into school, children begin for the first time to communicate and express themselves without their parents around. In a recent study “it was reported that all of the communication skills perceived as important to children ranked as follows 1. Referential skills, ego-support, conflict management, regulative skill, conversational, narrative and persuasive skills” (Aylor,2003, p.3). Studies such as above show that children are effective communicators and are not in a “performance” mode all the time. Maybe adults could really learn something from the blunt manner in which children express their non-sequiter thoughts.
Furthermore, educators need to hone their skills of a good rhetorician. This is the mastered way of lecturing in attempt to persuade the listener. Teachers, and those directly involved in the field of childhood education, should realize that their audience is young and easily molded; nonetheless using rhetoric to teach an idea or theory should not be one that is unappreciated. If the educator is not animated and passionately into their subject matter, it makes it difficult for the child to want to learn the information being taught. Being a good rhetorician is also a model of a good communicator. Children can learn how to communicate effectively solely reliant on watching a good rhetorician. Because “Learning to express with confidence at a young age can help a child forge friendships, do well in school, and down the road, land a job and marry. To be a good communicator simply narrate your life, listen up to what the kids are saying, keep it simple and to the point, connect with the children before you directly shout out in frustration, keep body language in mind, ignore little mistakes, use proper names when communicating and watch out for bad role models (this could be subversive)” (Sears, 2002, pgs. 1-3). Following the preceding rules, a good rhetorician advertently becomes a good communication role model.
Finally, to be an embodiment of commendable communication skills, an educator must possess the skills of public speaking. This, however, is not rhetoric.