What is the purpose of effective communication?
I have been taught my whole college career, and arguably earlier than that, that the purpose of communication was to relay a message from a sender to a receiver. Good communication is that which can be understood and processed and an exchange of ideas, thoughts or at least the interpretations of those thoughts can then be reciprocated. This, of course, goes for both verbal and non-verbal communication.
Simple examples:
Verbal communication-- "We will be studying, today, Chapter Two." This simple phrase, although spoken only by one person, shares a desired message which is easily and accurately interpreted by the recipients.
Non-verbal communication-- The students, recalling what they have read in Chapter Two (or at least processing that they understand that "chapter two" refers to a selection of pages in a book) either pull out a notebooks to take notes, pull out their textbooks or simply stare at the teacher. All of these actions are a form of non-verbal communication to the teacher to relate their level of understanding of the teacher's desires and/or their interpreted reaction to the desires of the above verbal communication.
Still with me??
I feel, at this point, that I am desperately in need of a good rant about the writing and teaching methods of many (and certainly a specific) college professor.
Teaching, if I am not mistaken, is a calling which requires you to have mastered the art of communication effectively. You need to be able to both relate to and teach your audience (also known as students). You need to be able to find what is applicable to them, creating a learning environment which will nurture their thought process and convince them either one, to agree with the ideas you are presenting to them or two, to disregard them as false.
Ineffective communication and teaching is disorganized, sporadic, self-emulating and filled with language (as in "speaking a foreign" and as in "words") which is not widely understood by the audience.
College is a time of concepts. It is a time of growth and achievement. It is a time when youth turns into adulthood and when new lengths and depths of the mind are challenged with thoughts and reactions that have before been unstimulated.
HOWEVER, that being said, when a professor teaches with ineffective communication techniques, not only is it ineffective in educating the students, it also deters and discourages them from learning information that they otherwise might need to possess or, even simply enjoy being in possession of.
Currently, I am taking a Cultural Anthropology class. Already, the teacher has violated one of my cardinal rules of bad teaching--never assign the students a text which you, yourself, have written. It seems to me that if you are an effective teacher, the students should then seek out more words from you to learn further from a good source, instead of being forced, without choice, to be subject further to your ideas (or am I wrong in this way of thinking??). In addition, his lectures are not only disorganized in structure, they are completely lacking in content. For 45 minutes (approximately, of course....sometimes more, sometimes less.....usually, though, more....)or more each class period we hear about field research that this professor did for ten years--reindeer herding in the Siberia's tundra, or about Caribou that he declined to shoot. Then, quizzed on differences in the ideas of holism, comparative method, cultural relativism and human evolutionary ecology, 88% of the class answered incorrectly. With such a poor outcome, one would think that there would be an understanding of the ineffectiveness of the communication on behalf of the teacher, not the inability of the student to retain information.
And yet the problem persists. This evening, upon reading this doctorate-holding professor's work, I have not only found multiple problems with spelling and grammar, but also with the structure and the content of the book which we are to understand and interpret as fact in the classroom.
Examples:
- Sentence--"Khantaiskoe Ozero is in a critical economic position, with few in the community still able to practice reindeer pastoralism and commercial fishing activities limited." Anyone catch that? Rather than "commercial fishing activities limited" the sentence should read, "commercial fishing activity is limited." Hmmm....small mistake? Maybe....
- "Hunting and gathering was the dominant mode of production for 99 percent of human evolutionary history. Only relatively recently, in the last 10,000 years, have humans developed more intensive forms of production such as gardening (horticulture), keeping domestic animals (pastoralism) and intensive agriculture, upon which industrial societies are dependent." Okay....while this might not be a gross misrepresentation of facts, and the point of majority is communicated ("99 percent of human evolutionary history....last 10,000 years) consider this: Human remains have been positively identified to have existed 2.6 million years ago (that is, 2,600,000 years). In the last few weeks, there have been discoveries in Africa which may argue that humans (or a similar pre-evolutionary species) were around 3.2 million years ago (facts yet to be confirmed, so don't quote me.....but that is, 3,200,000 years) Can someone do the math for me, here? 10,000 is 1/260 of 2.6 million. The percentage of this is .384615384......... Now, I'm not a math major, but isn't that slightly less than one percent? As in, 16,000 years less than one percent....And, what exactly can happen in evolutionary (not to mention cultural) history in 16,000 years? I think that this is the point of Cultural Anthropology--to teach us that A WHOLE HECK OF A LOT can happen in that 16,000 years.
- Sentence--"The Nganasan traditionally were wild-reindeer hunters, fishermen, and trappers, and they also kept domestic reindeer for transportation (Figure 1.4)" And so I turn to "Figure 1.4" which has a caption that reads, "Figure 1.4 Ekaterina Momde displaying her Nganasan winter parka at their remote fishing and hunting spot on the Dudypta River." The picture is of a young woman in a coat with a furry hood pulled over her head--snow in the background. Please, please correct me if I'm wrong, but the purpose of that sentence SEEMS to be relaying the idea that they used to be hunters and that they kept domestic reindeer for transportation, correct? I don't know of anywhere, in that whole paragraph (which I can copy down if any want to read) where it speaks of a) women as hunter gatherers (the Nganasan, like many cultures, are a patriarchal society), b) the use of skins, firs or hides or c) even anything about the weather or the climate during the times of hunting which would acquire such apparel. Are figures in text books not supposed to represent RELATIVE information in a portion of the text? Or, when cited in a portion of the text, are they simply a good substitute for facebook when you have a picture you would like to share with the masses?
- Last example: However, their purchasing power has diminished by an order of magnitude since 1991, and most view their socioeconomic situation as continuing to worsen (Ziker 1998a: 213, Ziker and Shmetterling 1997: 84-85). The commodities produced by native hunters, such as Arctic-fox pelts, have lost considerable value since 1991 (Ziker 1998a: 211) The author's name, for the book, by the way, is John Ziker. Now go back and read these sentences again. In the course of two sentences, he has quoted his own articles THREE times. I'm sure, when he wrote the original articles, there was some source of discovery for him to come up with these "facts"....however, YOU CANNOT QUOTE YOURSELF IN AN OFFICIAL WORK AS AN AUTHORITY. Forgive me, but any semi-intelligent person can back up something that they have said with something else that they have or will say, can they not? Oh....but wait.....that would be dishonest....forget it.
....and I'm only on page eight.....
Remember the standardized testing that we all had to endure during elementary school and through the beginning of high school whihc ensure that we are all functioning at a minor level of literacy? The ones that ensured that "no child [was] left behind"? This professor's writing is like that--like some strange version of an ACT practice exam. "which sentence in paragraph eight does not belong?"
Perhaps I'm beating this point to the ground....nit-picking little inconsistencies or stretches of fact when, in reality, I can interpret the point that is being conveyed fairly accurately. And while it is true, these mistakes (along with multiple misplaced commas and sentence syntax errors) are small and I, too, am quite guilty of making the same and more mistakes, there is one major difference: I don't assign my readings, my findings, my own observations of culture to hundreds of students each semester. I don't prescribe them as ten years of research and facts, and then fail to properly edit and make concise my remarks and my writings. Those who read what I have to say do so by choice, because they come looking for it, interested in my view point and my ideas. And if no one wants to read it? All the more commentary on what I have to say and the way I communicate. Instead, these mistakes and stretching of facts are what I am paying $7,000+ to learn this semester.
Not only that, but the basics, the foundation of what this knowledge could mean (if only the information was surrendered by those in authority who know!) is not being accurately and effectively taught. Things like holism, comparative method, cultural relativism and human evolutionary ecology--things which I will be tested on and principles which will establish the foundations of my learning--are lost in stories about caribou which, however interesting in casual conversation, are not essential if we do not understand their contextual importance.
And now I submit:
WITHOUT A FOUNDATION, ALL KNOWLEDGE AND LEARNING FAILS.WITHOUT COMMUNICATION, KNOWLEDGE AND LEARNING FAILS.
WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE AND LEARNING, GROWTH IS IMPOSSIBLE.
So what is communication? Communication is the ability to clearly and accurately relay your intentions to another. I do not expect or demand perfection from my teachers. Those teachers whose classes I have enjoyed most are those who have taught me that humanity comes with a full view of its flaws, both individual and societal. However, I do demand simple accuracy and attention to detail in my learning. I do not expect my teachers to be perfect, but I do expect for one to know his or her limits, and not to assume that because he/she is in possession of a degree of exalted education that he/she is either socially or strategically competent to teach or communicate clearly. As a student, I do not think that it is too much to demand the respect of that type of learning environment.
How sad is that when, instead of inspired, students are instead repulsed by a history which adds insight the question we all continually ask: "Why?"
I want to be able to answer "why".
