Why is it imporatnt for someone in your profession to have effective communication skills?

I believe strong communication skills are the central hub around which an effective, charismatic teacher is organized.

Teaching is impossible without communication. The simple view of teaching is that teaching is the conveying of information to students. More robustly, learning is a two way, interactive communication between students, individually and collectively, and their teacher. Perhaps most importantly and subtly, my experience and reading suggests that connection is the fuel that makes learning happen. Poor communication skills can hamstring or even destroy each of these elements in the delicate process of helping students to build learning.

But there is more to communication than effective use of the means of communication. One of the key reasons I am pursuing a M. Ed. is to better understand the mental process of learning. I expect that a central foundational element of this course of study is stages of child development. Likewise, I hope to better understand the concept of emotional intelligences and learning styles (e.g. auditory, visual, etc). I imagine there are other critical subjects I will study at UoPx to know how to structure the message I intend to communicate. Structuring the message and the interaction is also communication and it too is essential.

Finally, there is more to being a teacher than teaching. Teachers live in a community. They need to interact with administrators, who presumable have a major impact on the choices teachers are allowed to make. Building a solid community is essential to any fulfilled life. I envision that this is far more important in teaching. My goal would to be fully integrated into the teaching community at my hypothetical school. Strong relationships and open communications with my fellow teachers are what community is all about. Finally, it seems to me that every teacher should have an integrated strategy for each child fully articulated to and supported by the student’s parents. This is an ideal, but communication skills and abilities would none the less be a significant part of building a teacher/parent/student learning alliance. Communication is the fuel of community and learning is most effective in community.

Learning how to make effective communications is the core of teaching. Learning what content, tools, techniques, modalities, examples, etc to use is the art and science of teaching. Learning to interact effectively with the school community (fellow teachers, administrators and parents) is how to create an optimal environment around the classroom so that best learning can take place. Communication is underpinning of all education.