Blog 1: Real Communication vs. Information Dissemination

   If you’re anything like I am, you start your workday by checking your e-mail, and you probably do this for purely pragmatic reasons—not social. The information you need is there, and if you don’t check, you may be missing out on something essential for your day. As you peruse through the dozens of e-mails you’ve received over the past 14 hours since you left work, though, you can’t process it all. This morning, for example, I found 15 e-mails waiting for me: two were purely informational (but only one of them actually applied to me), one was the day’s school announcements, one was an invitation to a special luncheon, three were from the district office, one was a request from Questbridge, two were from students requesting college recommendation letters, and the rest were invitations for various planning, committee, and special education meetings. Whew! And that was all before 7:00 a.m.!

     Just a decade or so ago, most important information (with the exception of daily announcements) was shared in weekly staff meetings, involving face-to-face contact and conversations, and question/answer time. Even though the communication was “top-down,” with the principal in charge of the meeting, being together “in person” felt—and was, in fact—more organic in nature. Ideas came from the “tribes” who sat together and collaborated during the meetings, and there was a sense of belonging and interconnectedness that came from gathering weekly. Much of the emails I receive now are examples of “mass” communication (the email is going to the entire English Department, school staff, or even district staff). There is so much information (and much of it doesn’t even apply to me), that I often tune out and end up not reading the parts I need to know. Let’s face it—the brain can only process so much information at one time. This is exactly what Peter Drucker observes in his chapter, “Functioning Communications” from The Essential Drucker: “The noise level has gone up so fast that no one can really listen anymore . . . there is clearly less and less (sic) communicating (261). He’s so right!       

    As the recipient of all of this “communication,” I wonder about the people who are responsible for sending it. In a school, most of it comes from administrators, which means administrators are spending a great deal of their time writing e-mails, announcements, etc. With the amount of written communication required of them, what are their feelings about it? Do they find it to be valuable? What strategies do they use to address different audiences? To partially find answers to these question, I sat down with one of the assistant principals at the high school where I teach, "Mr. Adams," to discuss the kinds of writing he engages in as an administrator in charge of 700 sophomores and “activities,” and his observations about communication in such a big institution.

     Mr. Adams told me he uses writing as a primary communication tool with a number of intended audiences, including fellow administrators, teachers, parents, and various community members and organizations. His writing includes: 

• E-mails (to a number of different recipients)
• Teacher Evaluations
• Announcements (to teachers, students, parents, community)
• Letters/Notes to SIAC (School Improvement Advisory Council)
• Letters of Reference/Recommendation for students, teachers
• Letters to community organizations and community leaders (“thank-you’s,” formal invitations, solicitation of donations)

Social media is also a communication tool used to communicate with students, parents, and the community (but may include unintended audiences). These include:

• Twitter (for athletics)
• Twitter (general information)
• District/school websites
• Youtube
• Facebook
• Peachjar
• Remind
• Canvas (learning management system which includes the day’s announcements)

      With all these communication tools, one would think that everyone in the school would be up to date on the latest information, but that is not the case. As Mr. Adams noted, there are more avenues for communication than ever before; however, he observed, communication can turn into “over communication.” When teachers have too many e-mails to read (particularly if they are all on the same topic), they tend to hit “delete,” instead of reading them all. Adams’ observation mirrors what Peter Drucker observes about there being “less and less communicating.”

       Mr. Adams believes “one-on-one, face-to-face” communication is best, but with 2,500 students, their families, over 200 employees, and numerous administrators and community members with which to communicate, it is not always possible. Adams believes there are some benefits to written communication. It is often easier for people to read and process information at their leisure, than it is to listen on demand and process. Adams notes that because everyone filters information differently, the recipients don’t always perceive the message in the way it was intended. Because of this, he tries to ensure his message is unequivocal, observing, “Ambiguous information is frustrating, and makes others’ jobs harder.”

     Written communication in a public school involves audiences with a plethora of possible constraints, presenting administrators with communication challenges. My high school is a Title One school, with 59% of the students on “free or reduced” lunch. Of the 2,500 students in attendance (grades 9- 12), 54% are Caucasian, 36% Hispanic, 4% African-American, 3% Native American, and 3% “other,” and the graduation rate hovers at around 70%, far below the national average of 80%. Adams said that “purpose, tone, and audience” drive his approach to writing. This is in line with Lloyd Bitzer’s “rhetorical situation,” which includes “exigence, audience, and constraints (220). A great deal of the time, Adams’ purpose is to inform parents of something they need to know about (although, arguably, the school’s sense of exigence may not be the same as parents’). He finds that keeping the tone of his writing as neutral as possible helps keep people focused on the issue at hand and reduces miscommunication. For example, with a drop-out rate of approximately 30%, Adams must notify parents when their teens are struggling, or are in danger of losing credits due to poor grades or excessive absences. Instead of focusing on the “failure” of the student (which parents sometimes construe as their failures, as well), Adams simply focuses on solutions—credit recovery, summer school, distance learning (via computer), extra tutoring, etc. Regardless of the reasons for contacting students and/or parents, however, making sure the message gets to the appropriate people cab be difficult, at best, especially those parents who have difficulty reading Adam's writing.

     Adams notes that many of our students’ parents do not speak/read English, and a great many others have poor reading skills, or are illiterate in English. This is where knowing the audience is essential. He often has his writing translated into Spanish by a qualified translator, and tries to find numerous ways to send the same messages so that—with any luck—those parents who can’t read well will get the message through word of mouth.

     For me, the question becomes, “With all this writing, are we actually communicating better than in the past, or simply passing on more and more information?” Most of what Mr. Adams and I write for our respective jobs is purely informational. At least eighty-five percent of it does not even require anything remotely resembling “two-communication.” The message is passed on, and, often, vanishes into the abyss . . . As Drucker notes, “Information is purely formal and has no meaning . . . [it is] impersonal rather than interpersonal” (264). Drucker also asserts, “The more information . . . the greater is the communications gap likely to be” (266).

     Of note, even teachers are having less face-to-face communication with students. With learning management programs in hybrid classes (Canvas, Blackboard, e.g.) and on-line cases, fewer students and teachers are forging personal relationships. On my high school campus, all students have computers and all classes have Canvas accounts, so much of the teaching in on the computer. While this is great preparation for students (and an ideal place for teaching media literacy skills), sometimes teachers and students view computers as a replacement for talking, rather than the tool it is. Some teachers in my school, in fact, have all of their lesson on Canvas, and run their classrooms as if they were engaged in distance learning rather than "hybrid" classes. Last year, I did something incredibly ridiculous myself. I asked students to engage in a discussion on-line with the very people they were sitting next to. When I reflected on this, I realized that I had completely missed the point of on-line discussions. They are for people who are NOT in the same place! If I want my students to have a discussion, and they're in the same room, it only makes sense to have them speaking to each other.

Next Week's Blog: The Importance of Teacher Discourse Communities

Works Cited

Bitzer, Lloyd F. "The Rhetorical Situation." Philosophy and Rhetoric, vol. 1, 1968, pp. 1-14.

"Functioning Communications." The Essential Drucker: The Best Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's

     Essential Writings on Management, by Peter Ferdinand Drucker, Harper Business, 2003.