These are the last practical classes in the Communication Skills module. I honestly hope that even long after graduating from the university you will use in your everyday life and work the knowledge and skills acquired here.
We are living in the time of fast changes, so the knowledge and skills obtained while studying at the college are only a fraction of the challenges we are going to meet in our life. For that reason, the practical classes in the Communication Skills module, as well as this textbook, are not meant to be a reproduction of the existing professional and scientific knowledge, but rather to be oriented to developing the skills of speaking in public and arguing personal views. At the very end of these classes, I want to open several topics for discussion and some possibilities for further development in this field.
What we have learnt in this module
In the practical classes, we have dealt with live communication only. As the subject is lectured at the professional and specialist studies of the Information Technology and Electrical Engineering departments, such decision was not easy to make. We can wonder if it would be more logical that from the very beginning we had a part of the module focused on the computer–mediated communication. In line with a similar argumentation perhaps I should have paid more attention to the business communication. Since most IT and electrical engineers today work in small teams, maybe I should have focused on communication within a team…
Communication skills are exceptionally broad area, so it is a real art to present in 30 lectures and 30 practical classes to our students the knowledge and skills they will need most. Having in mind the introductory nature of this module, I did not focus on some particular aspect of communicology, but rather opted for development of generic skills like speaking in public and searching for information, as well as for acquirement of general knowledge such as Aristotle’s structure of argument.
For example, the impromptu speech skill can be applied to a number of situations in business and private life, while the balance between ethos, logos i pathos will be different in an exam, at a business meeting or on a romantic date. The skills such as searching for information, independent preparation for a debate and writing a seminar paper make a good basis for obtaining new knowledge. Regardless of the lack of focus, with the knowledge and skills acquired in this module we can go a long way.
However, we should not forget that we are talking about the raw material here, namely the knowledge and skills which ought be adjusted to the context of every single situation. Speaking from these grounds, we can righteously say that a true learning of the communication skills begins only after the students pass this exam.
How to develop our own communication skills?
Over the recent years, there has been much talk about lifelong learning, education of the grownups, education for the third age… What does that actually mean? To answer this question, it is necessary to look back a little into the past and to attempt to predict the future on those grounds. For the beginning, let us return to the mid-20th century, the time of our grandparents.
An average grandfather of today’s student of the Zagreb Polytechnic finished his education and found a job in the field of his profession (whether a craftsman or a university lecturer is not essential for this debate). During his lifework the grandfather was promoted in his profession: a shoemaker became a master craftsman or the head of workshop, while an assistant lecturer became a full professor. Professionally, he was developing together with his job: he learnt new methods of work from others and passed his experience and knowledge onto yet others. Profession advanced continuously, and the grandfather was able to use the knowledge acquired during his schooling all the way till the retirement. His education was based mainly on memorising the facts and methods of work, which was suitable because there were not too many facts and the work methods rarely changed.
Our grandparents’ descendants – our parents – were born in a very similar social situation. Their education, too, was based on memorising the facts and working methods, which was appropriate at one period of their life because there were not too many facts and the methods rarely changed. And then, in the late eighties, computers appeared on the social scene. In the beginning, they were used only by the enthusiasts who were assembling them in their garages. Typical examples of those enthusiasts were Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Richard Stallman. However, very soon computers came out of the basements and started an unstoppable march, conquering the whole world in less than two decades. Along with globalisation, the fall of the Berlin Wall and other important social changes, those movements are denoted by sociologists with the common term as development from mass to network society (van Dijk, 1999; Castells, 2001). I warmly recommend you to read some of the mentioned literature on this topic. I am sure you will find it very useful.
For the rest of the story it is important to stress that our parents’ generation found themselves in big professional and private problems. In their forties, fifties and sixties, social conditions deeply changed overnight. The old methods of work did not function any longer, factories were closed down, and they simply did not have the opportunity to prepare for new jobs by learning in due time the required skills such as work at the computer. Their children speak some other language, buy over the Internet… Information has literally become available on the palm: the old educational approach based on reproduction of facts has become futile. Even the facts are changing fast: yesterday’s truth is not necessarily the truth of today or tomorrow.
Some from our parents’ generation have managed to accommodate to the situation, while some simply have retired early. The information revolution is global, those changes are more or less going on all over the world. Our parents and their peers were not lucky enough to be prepared for the forthcoming changes: those who adapted, did so on their own. Today, we are realising that such a change is not a unique, once-in-history event, but a trend that is most likely to continue. Let us stop for a moment and take a look at some retiree who has never learnt how to use a computer. Do you really think that one day something similar couldn’t happen to you?
Due to ever faster advancement of technology, we are in even greater danger than our parents to lag behind technological advancement, but we have one big advantage which they did not have: we understand the direction of social changes and on those grounds we can at least try to prevent our knowledge from becoming obsolete.
The best answer to this problem which society could think of is a lifelong learning. As the saying goes, we do not want to give you a fish (facts), but to teach you how to fish (comprehend new facts). This whole textbook is focused on such fishing. Extensive bibliography enables individual development in various directions: many tasks are oriented to individual preparation. Discussion and debate are fundamental means of developing the critical thinking, which is the necessary precondition for lifelong learning.
You can develop your communication skills through different theoretical and practical methods such as reading and watching your environment. I sincerely hope that you will return to this textbook also after you have passed the exam: real learning begins when the grade is written down into your course record book. However, no textbook can convey the main characteristic of successful people: curiosity and thirst for knowledge. The main purpose of this module is to offer students the knowledge and skills required for their own development. I sincerely hope that you will use them equally for both your own benefit and the benefit of the whole society.
Applying acquired knowledge and skills in everyday life
You will soon leave the college and independently join the working world. Despite all the adversities that you have been through while studying, you belong to a privileged tenth of the Croatian society who had desire, possibility and personal strength to graduate from the university. You have learnt a lot while studying; now comes the time for your giving back to your community what you have learnt.
No matter how hard we are trying to make the education in the field of communication skills as relevant as possible to everyday challenges in professional and private life, a classroom can never completely represent reality. In everyday life we often meet people who do not listen the other side’s arguments, those who are prone to underestimate and/or insult the collocutor, or those who simply do not want to admit the obvious power of arguments. Unfortunately, sometimes even well trained speakers simply cannot fight against some widespread forms of disrespect for collocutor such as cutting remarks or interrupting the speech. Yet, this is not the reason to give up a seemly communication practice and to degrade ourselves to the level of such collocutors.
When you meet the people who do not communicate at a suitable level, do not judge them immediately. First of all, remember your having a privilege to learn something what they did not, try to understand the reasons for their behaviour and show them by your own example how to communicate properly. In this module, I have shown that the skills such as speech delivery or debating are only the tip of the communication skills iceberg; their true understanding comes exclusively out of the synergy between theory and practice.
On these grounds, do try to explain to your collocutor the importance of humanistic values such as mutual responsibility, inclusiveness, freedom of expression, respect, tolerance and diversity. Express your disagreement with bad communication habits and warn of their theoretical and practical consequences. Offer your help and suggest to your collocutors the correct manners of communication. Try again and again: even if the results of your efforts are not instantly visible, in the long run they will certainly contribute to the development of our society.
Like many times in life, here we are coming to a dilemma. On one side, our moral responsibility as university educated citizens of this country is to help in raising general awareness of important issues including communication. If each of us raises the communication level in our own family and at work, our environment will soon become a nicer place to live in. On the other side, such form of fighting for a better world is not always warmly received. We all know about the examples of administrative workers who talk to everyone in a raised, rude and nervous tone, of colleagues who stubbornly insist to be too familiar when addressing you although you try to keep polite personal distance, of those who disturb business meetings by persistent digressions and interruptions… Such people, unfortunately, very often do not understand that something is wrong: when you warn them you can expect negative reactions.
There are many strategies in solving such situations and to a great extent they depend on the context. The level of our own social activity should be adjusted to real possibilities, without getting into conflicts which are predestined for disaster. We must never forget that we alone create our own environment. In Paulo Freire’s words, “”man’s ontological vocation is to be a Subject who acts upon and transforms his world, and in so doing moves toward ever new possibilities of fuller and richer life individually and collectively”” (Shaull, 2000: 29). Knowledge and understanding of the world in which we live are not and must not be commodities. By sharing the knowledge and by deepening the understanding of our own circumstances, we equally encourage personal and social advancement. Therefore, I kindly ask you to generously share with those around you the knowledge that you have acquired in this module even if that requires additional efforts.
Bibliography
Castells, Manuel (2001): The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society. Oxford University Press. (Croatian translation, by N. DuĹľanec, “”Internet Galaksija: Razmišljanja o Internetu, poslovanju i društvu””, published in 2003 by Naklada Jesenski i Turk)
Shaull, Richard (Foreword). // Freire, Paulo (2000): Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th Anniversary Edition. Continuum International Publishing Group, pp 29-35.
Van Dijk, Jan (1999): The Network Society: Social Aspects of the New Media. London: SAGE.