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Michelle Nelson

Marisa Enos

ENG 111.W03

25 April 2018

Communicating for Success

Habits begin to form starting from the time a person is born. Bad habits or good habits,

they become a part of the way people live. One such habit that is formed early on is how we

communicate with one another. A person’s communication can have a profound impact in many

different areas of his or her life, one of which is the educational experience. If the proper habits

aren’t formed, the adjustment to higher level academics is most certainly going to be a difficult

transition. Students need to know how to ask questions and communicate with their instructors

and fellow students. I personally had a difficult adjustment from my early educational years to

the college setting. I was a good student, active in clubs and athletics, and graduated in the top

ten percent of my class. Why was it when I entered my freshman year of college right after high

school that I failed so miserably? I was not prepared. In my case, I didn’t know how to ask

questions or what questions to even ask, or how to fully engage in the material being presented.

In the past, all I needed to do was pay attention to the teacher and do my homework, there was

never a need for any communication. I know I am not alone in this struggle. This is a

widespread problem many students face as they advance to college. Lack of encouragement to

communicate in the classroom from a young age can ultimately lead students to have a bumpy

transition into college.

The way students interact with others has a considerable influence on later learning. This

includes interaction between fellow students as well as with their teachers. The way students are
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taught helps mold the habits they develop regarding communication with others. Unfortunately,

in many cases students are essentially discouraged from communicating at all in their early years

of school, especially in the teacher-student relationship. Most often, they are expected to merely

absorb the words of their instructors with the expectation of accepting what is said without

question. This greatly hinders their ability to communicate on an academic level upon entering

college. As Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire claims in “The ‘Banking’ Concept

of Education,” students are simply fed information and then expected to reproduce it on demand.

This doesn’t encourage a deeper understanding and knowledge of the material being discussed, it

simply encourages students to memorize what is deemed important long enough to pass the test

at the end. In this environment, Freire argues,

Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the

depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the

teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently

receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the “banking” concept of education, in

which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving,

filing, and storing the deposits. (1)

When students are fed information without the opportunity to challenge or question this material

with any kind of interaction or input of their own, there is no habit of intellectual communication

formed. This method of teaching greatly diminishes the creativity of the student and acts to

oppress their communication and critical thinking skills. These are important traits required for a

successful college experience. The higher-level classes require more analytical thinking and

problem solving than the typical high school class. However, students that have been simply fed
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information for years lack experience in finding their own solutions when necessary. This

becomes a problem when college instructors expect more of students than simply listening to

lectures and memorizing the material. The level of thinking needed in college often requires

students to engage in learning beyond the traditional classroom. This is the type of engagement

new college students are lacking. Robert Leamnson, Professor of Biology and Director of

Multidisciplinary Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth discusses

communication habits in his book Thinking About Teaching and Learning. In a passage titled

“Today’s First-Year Students”, Leamnson states “For a generation at least, young people have

been entering school inexperienced in the kinds of mental engagement with adults that prepare a

child for school, at least school as most teachers understand it” (80). Why is it that students are

so unprepared and inexperienced? Likely, just as Freire argues, it is because they were never

given the opportunity to take an active role in their education—they were discouraged from even

communicating at all for the most part. In the past, students were required to sit quietly, listen to

what was being taught, memorize the information, and certainly not question the material being

presented. This oppressive style of teaching they were subjected to during their younger

educational years left them with a lack of communication skills often necessary in a college

setting.

This underdeveloped habit of communication inhibits the new college student’s ability to

succeed. Without having an opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations, students aren’t

prepared for the level of academic exchanges that are necessary in a college setting. Students

haven’t had the opportunity to create good habits toward communication and learn appropriate

language for the academic environment. In many cases, this can lead to students falling behind
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in their studies because they aren’t comfortable asking questions necessary to better understand

the information. They aren’t sure how to properly participate in an academic conversation. In

“A Troublesome Threshold: Entering Academic Conversations” Iliana Miller, English and

Humanities Faculty at Mid-Michigan Community College, reasons “Before we enter into a

conversation, the first thing we need to do is listen. Our goal is to be able to understand what

others say and mentally engage in the conversation. Then we can enter the conversation and

contribute our opinion” (4). If students aren’t good listeners, they are less likely to be good

communicators, and both are essential for educational success. Just as Freire described, not

having had much opportunity to participate in their own learning, many students lack the

important skill of maintaining an academic conversation. They have not properly been taught to

mentally engage, as they have always been force fed all the information necessary to do well,

without a need for deeper understanding. Certain learning environments can seem completely

foreign to a student unfamiliar with the terminology used. A student that hasn’t yet learned to

listen would find it almost impossible to adjust to the academic communication needed for these

situations. This can lead to frustration for the student which in turn diminishes the student’s

desire to learn anything at all, inevitably setting him or her up for failure. Perri Klass,

pediatrician and professor at New York University, recalls her experience during medical school

in “Learning the Language”, an excerpt from A Not Entirely Benign Procedure by explaining

some of the challenges she had with communication as a medical student. When entering an

unfamiliar environment, she encourages one to “absorb not only the vocabulary but also the

structure, the logic, the attitudes” (Klass 64). While Freire contends that listening without

interaction is oppressive and hinders communication skills, both Miller and Klass stress that we

must listen to learn the language of the company we are with before attempting to be part of the
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conversation. This is a never-ending skill that should be practiced from an early age for a student

to be prepared for academic communication. Students have been discouraged from

communicating so much throughout their pre-college years that they had little reason to learn to

listen for the appropriate language of the conversations around them. This is a serious

disadvantage when starting a college education. At this point it is a necessary skill the student

must master quickly as a beginner, possibly stalling his or her progress which could eventually

prevent the student from reaching his or her full potential.

It’s hard to remain surprised that today’s new college students are unprepared when one

takes the time to look at the educational tendencies that have been fortified from the beginning of

school. Habits such as listening only to memorize and avoiding academic conversation that have

been encouraged during the early years of learning are not conducive to success in upper level

education. It, then, becomes a challenge for both the adult students and the instructors to

reprogram the mind to think more creatively and to be open to constructive communication.

According to Leamnson, “It’s far easier to teach a five-year old (given the talent and skill to do

it) than a nineteen-year-old… Nineteen years of experience do not make the young adult brain

easier to deal with” (74-75). A person might believe that after 13 years of school, a student

should be more than capable of succeeding in college. While it is undoubtedly accurate to say a

lot is learned in those 13 years, sadly much of what is learned is often counterproductive.

Students expect high school to prepare them for college but aren't aware this hasn’t happened

until they are directly faced with the college setting. At that point it's too late for the student to

take any responsibility and make changes to be better prepared. If the communication skills

formed prior to college were better aimed toward critical thinking and engaging in academic

conversation, students would have an easier transition to the requirements of college level
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education. Leamnson further indicates that “Because the attitudes and habits of typical freshmen

are at such odds with those of their teachers, new students suffer, literally, a cultural shock in

their first-year of college” (79). Students are simply not prepared to enter this new chapter of

their lives, in large part due to lack of practice properly communicating for success at this level

of education.

What does it take to shape productive communication skills that will support a successful

educational experience? There is much to be learned from these notable authors regarding the

effects a person’s communication habits have on his or her education. Habits are most often

shaped without intention. They develop over time from repeated practice. As adults,

communication habits are harder to change and can make the transition to college difficult.

Learning to communicate at an academic level can be a frustrating experience for adult students

that can lead to academic failure if the student is unable to adapt. It’s clear that the inability to

effectively communicate has a negative bearing on the educational experience. In order to

improve the chances of academic success in the adult educational setting, both students and

educators must strive to change these communication habits as early as possible.

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Works Cited

Freire, Paulo. “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education” pp. 1-12

Klass, Perri. “Learning the Language” Exploring Connections: Learning in the 21st Century.

Pearson, 2016, pp 61-64

Leamnson, Robert. “Today’s First-Year Students” Exploring Connections: Learning in the 21st

Century. Pearson, 2016, pp 73-85

Miller, Iliana. “A Troublesome Threshold” Exploring Connections: Learning in the 21st

Century. Pearson, 2016, pp 3-6