One of the big issues day in and day out in the childcare business is communication. Believing what I once heard in a college communications class, "You cannot not communicate," I have blithely gone about my early childcare life believing that everyone communicates - somehow - and all you have to do is listen. But recently, I think that there are some loopholes in that premise. I am beginning to believe that some children and most adults have some real impediments to what a thinker would call communication.
Communication is not the holding back of information until the pot boils. Kids do this all the time with bathroom needs. "Do you need to use the bathroom?" And the child ignores you, he shrugs, he pretends you didn't ask. He might even go to the bathroom and stand there or wash his hands. Next thing you know, he's got a problem, but the problem is not verbalized. He might be outside dancing around holding himself and you ask again, "Do you need to use the bathroom?" and he will look at you as if you have two heads.
The experienced provider or teacher never asks, "Do you need to use the bathroom?" The experienced teacher says, "Use the bathroom now."
Holding back information is a bad habit that most people indulge in. I'm never quite sure if it's a method of getting to be king of the mountain, or if it's some other power play or some kind of evasiveness that means a kind of emotional safety zone. If you listen to or engage most people, most conversation will be about the details and minutia of someone's life. You will hear about aches and pains, sleep, and what they ate or watched on TV. Sometimes the conversation will elevate into long reports about people the listener has little contact with or little interest in. This is American conversation and communication. This is what fascinates the speaker and deadens the listener. No wonder we are in decline.
If this is the sum total of what children are witnessing at home, God help the next generation.
The whole point of communication is sharing information. Sometimes the ideal of sharing that information is artistic. Someone's art is the expression of that person's soul, and it becomes our greatest communication more so than any other method of expression. No other thing allows us to more completely give information about ourselves than art. That's why art in the classroom is so important. The knowledge of how to express the self is one of the teaching strategies of a good school.
Getting the person out of the person is a frightening experience for some kids and for most adults. The disdain for the kind of expression that runs as deep as art is often something that runs just too deep to communicate about, and that's a shame. It's a shame because that attitude had to be learned someplace and most likely it was learned at home or from a teacher. Adults are often less willing to communicate on an artistic level than children who always want to show someone what they have done. The scripture passage, "Unless you come to Me as little children..." comes to mind.
Yet as a writer I know that sharing information about writing is about as exciting to a listener as the minutia of my life. Artists who produce often keep the details to themselves. In my own life rarely if ever does someone ask, "What are you writing now?" And more rare than that is a willing listener to the answer. (I'm guessing that the question is not rhetorical.) The finished product of my writing is my communication with the world. It's an enormous part of my life, but it's also a part of my life that must be sublimated constantly by a world more interested in gossip, TV and minutia. When the ultimate response to reading my work is "That's good" I wonder if I'm living in Oz.
Little children, on the other hand, are brash about their work and most live in Oz anyway. "Look, Miss Judy, do you like what I did?" Now there is communication at its absolute best. It's a wide open question that asks a really intense statement. "Do you, the chosen person, like, give a seal of approval from your own soul, what I, the communicator at his best, did, his work, the effort of his mind and heart. Then is not the time for the ultimate brush off, "That's good."
A teaching moment with art can make or break a child's mind and heart for a moment. The breaking of the moment drives the child into the mindlessness of minutia, aches and pains, gossip, TV and what he ate the night before. The making or encouragement from a teacher or parent often signals a child that his work is acceptable, and so is he. This elevates his curiosity, it gives him impetus to accelerate the process of thought and creation to the next level - ideas. Ideas are the greatest form of communication because ideas carried out change the world.
Art develops from ideas and a sense of inner worth. Some people express themselves through clothing, language, funny expression, acts of kindness, creativity at work, a house can become someone's artistic expression. Sometimes it's a garden or a collection or any number of human delights. But at the base of expression is the idea. Ideas are a constant work of art and can give immeasurable goodness at any time.
But ideas are like art today; they are stuffed inside the person and wont to come forth because all around us the talk is minutia, TV, last night's dinner and who did what to whom. Why are so many people stuck in the quagmire of a refusal to bring forth their wonderful ideas and really communicate? Why is conversation so incredibly dull, and why is art sublimated at all costs?
Recently I watched my first "reality" TV. I could listen for about 3 minutes before I felt my brain dying. Perhaps this is the new archetype of communication? It fit the causal bill - minutia of a very boring and hapless life, gossip, TV and aches and pains. If this is the new model of communication, we all better re-examine quickly.
This year in school, one of my afternoons will be spent communicating with kids from the heart. We will do an afternoon of theater where expression and vamp will be award winning. It will be called Communication 101. I am hoping to have children talk about their dreams and their likes and be able to act out the things that interest them. It's verbal expression, and I want to catch that and develop it.
Mrs. St. Louis is turning Friday afternoons into fine arts with the idea that she will be imparting the knowledge necessary to accomplish an understanding of what fine art is.
Miss Amy is using the late mornings for a host of different musical components. These components will be far reaching and include a lot of self expression as well as learning about the art of music.
Miss Kelly will be taking science to a fine art height. The touch, the taste, the smell, the sound, the sight of things natural and expected and those things unexpected will be her playground.
Communication is possible from every human breath. It should be welcomed by adults from children and other adults and should never be limited to stultifying reports about personal minutia or insidious recaps about TV. Think about your last conversation and ask yourself what heights that conversation could have met. It's frightening to think that reality TV has caught us in the same muck.
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