Synthesizing Education

Students need to be equipped with a plethora of skills to be successful in the 21^st century, new economy, globalized world, or whatever you want to call it. Regardless, students’ ability to be clear and articulate as writers AND speakers will take center stage and define whether or not their ideas are accepted and developed or thrown to the scrap heap. This isn’t a new phenomenon, and I don’t want anyone to take this to mean that students in the past didn’t have to master this same type of attribute. I simply want to emphasize the difference in the type of situations and positions that students will find themselves that make these skills unique in the future. The fact of the matter is that the use of this skill will not be “new”; instead it should be categorized as “different” or “evolving”.

Think about what it is like when you have to explain an idea to a group. It is important that your idea is not only well-thought out but, also, that your audience is able to clearly understand the basis of what you are trying to say as well as how your ideas are connected to their lives. Now imagine that your audience is comprised of 200 people and you need each and every one of them to understand your idea perfectly. Finally, you can only do it once because those same 200 people are each going to inform 5 more people. This is a daunting task and one that could keep a lot of us up all night long.

The difference between the past and the future is that you will have ONE shot to articulate your idea in a clear, coherent fashion before it is dispersed to hundreds and thousands of people. This isn’t to say that mistakes won’t happen, but the fact of the matter is that you need to be as perfect as possible when articulating an idea, vision, or program. Correcting the mistake could take weeks or months. Proofreading and editing will never be more important than in the future. Practicing a sales pitch will never be more important than in the future. Partnerships that offer critical analyses of your practice sessions will be worth their weight in gold and probably be the basis for a new genre of consulting firms. An ability to annunciate will take on a whole new meaning as technologies will surely learn to translate speech into a variety of languages to increase the speed at which ideas are spread across continents.

The implications of this concept on education are huge. Students who begin completing projects that require them to record videos, podcasts, and web conferences will be ahead of the game when it comes to this skill for obvious reasons. Giving more oral presentations with the student (not the PowerPoint) as the focal piece will be critical. Having students pass ideas from one to the other (telephone) will advance these skills to even greater degrees especially if it includes them having discussions with each other over the web.

This is all good news for education and the human race in general. With increased emphasis on acute articulation of ideas and public-speaking skills, new jobs will open up and specialized fields created. I have yet to meet a teacher who doesn’t care how well his/her students can speak, and I hope that I never do.  The key is to emphasize precision of speech in the classroom and promote that transfer of knowledge beyond the walls of the educational realm so that students make clear speech a pattern in their everyday lives thereby making it easier for them to achieve success in the future.

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