Wherever we go, we are inundated with communication. By the spoken word, we communicate with the people we meet, the people we speak with on the phone and even the people on the radio, the television and the movies. But that is just a very small part of the communication we are faced with on a daily basis. We are also constantly communicating with people in the written medium. Whatever we read—in books, newspapers, magazines and even on the labels of the products that we buy—is communication. Don’t even get us started with the humongous amount of communication possibilities that exist on the Internet!
However, studies reveal that not all people respond to communication in the same manner. There are people who are more responsive to communication, and these people are those that eventually become better-informed and even more successful. There are people who ignore most of the communication. These are the people who miss out on a great and free way of personal development.
In education, communication is one major key – to learn and teach. If you are planning to make the most of it, the one thing you have to bear in mind is to be receptive. Whatever forms anyone is trying to communicate with you, you have to be able to receive that input. If someone is speaking with you, open your ears wide to listen. If you are reading something, open your eyes wide. Most importantly, keep your brain open at all times. Receive all the information that you get and try to store as much of it as you can.
You can do this effectively by enhancing your input channels and downplaying the output ones. In spoken conversations, the simplest way to do this is to listen more and speak less. When you listen more, you are inputting information into your brain, and you are not spending more energy by talking, which is a form of output information. When you are reading, however, the bulk of your communication is input. That is the reason why reading is such an important part of a child’s education—it is an almost 100% form of knowledge and information input, quite unlike other forms of communication that prevail.
By: Mrs. Rosario M. Francisco | Teacher III | Sta. Rosa Elementary School | Pilar, Bataan
