This Again

In a meeting today, I made a positive response about an organization and added (without really thinking) that any organization is only as good as its communication.

The notion of communication keeps popping up, all the time and in any situation. Communication in a relationship, in a business, in school - without it, any of those endeavors will stumble.

So boiling it down to its simplest terms, education is about helping kids become good communicators. Can they process information and can they express themselves? Everything else follows.

Communication Modes

A primary objective for both 7th and 8th grade Language Arts classes this year is an appreciation for various ways people choose to communicate. Two activities today helped underscore this objective.

As a Steinbeck fan, I am always happy to use his books with students. The 7th graders are reading The Pearl, and as a way to briefly summarize before moving ahead, they wrote headlines for the first chapter. Their creativity was excellent - some of my favorites were 'Song of Evil Overcomes Song of Family', 'Doctor: Friend or Foe?', and the tabloid-y 'Doctor Disses Patient'. Being succinct is not always easy, but they were still able to communicate the gist of the chapter successfully.

The 8th graders are reading Of Mice and Men, and their job was to text a conversation between Lennie and George. Texting is a process they are quite comfortable with, and were able to see the parallels to dialogue while having fun in the process.

TTFN ;)