'They Asked Me Where I Get This Stuff, I Told Them I Don't Know'

In my past columns, I’ve discussed the value of a liberal arts education in its ability to endow us with critical-thinking and writing skills — everything a future graduate needs to take the world by a storm. However, I am now of the opinion that there is a crucial gap in our education.

This last week my in my intro to dance class, the professor concluded a discussion on the cultural nuances of body language with a particularly poignant comment; she said that this might be the only class we would take at Middlebury on rhetoric. Rhetoric is defined as the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing. And while Socrates may see rhetoric as a superficial and cosmetic pursuit, anyone who has sat in on a seminar discussion session can attest to the frustration that ensues from the garish but empty language bandied about by individuals intent on upping their participation grade.

It is a widely criticized but frequently practiced tendency of students to take advantage of open forums to soliloquize on every vaguely formed thought they encounter, ideological posture to which they’ve recently attached themselves or Internet article espousing “indisputable” findings on “x” and “y” research studies. Most others present for these pontifications respond by tuning out and waiting for their turn to unleash an unrelated but similarly ill-constructed stream of consciousness. There are some occasional gems, typically in the form of a perceptive question, which cut through the BS and engage others in genuine consideration of the material. But all too often the desire to prove to the professor one’s knowledge on a subject or the extent to which one has done the assigned reading interferes with true conversation.

This trend is not unique to the classroom. The audience may vary but the spirit of the conversation (or lack thereof) remains the same. However I feel it’s unfair to put the blame entirely on student egoism. Which brings me back to my original point — our campus discourse, in the classroom and out, would greatly benefit from an education on efficient and effective verbal communication.

I myself am a victim of an incapacity to verbalize the knowledge I’ve mentally acquired and synthesized into a clear ,coherent thought. The really good professors will follow up my baseless sentiments with a cutting question that reveals just how meaningless my assertions were. My head immediately reels with all the things I should have said, the information that might have made my statement something worth considering, and I slump down internally, foiled again by inability to translate thought into words.

As a school publication, the Campus is constantly confronted with fervent opinions, some thought out and some not. It is true that even when we have time to consider, construct and qualify our arguments, we still fall short. So it goes with the over-opinionated and under-informed. But if our arguments are going to falter, it should not be because we lack the skills to convey what we truly mean.

We are a community of intellects, or so I’d like to think, and it is a travesty that this gap exists between our inner voice and spoken word. While not every thought is a golden egg, the overall quality of our discourse would be well served if we learned to construct a decent argument. We would have more productive dialogue and less miscommunication. We would have more conversation and less lecturing. I truly believe that by refining our speaking skills, we would better understand each other.

We pride ourselves in a low student-to-teacher ratio, active class participation, and more and more we seek to utilize a variety of different conduits for dialogue to address difficult issues that we as a community face. At the same time, too much value is placed on discussion for the sake of discussion. As we are the most effective conduits for our ideas, we — students and educators alike — should make the greatest effort possible to improve the tools we naturally possess and live up to our potential.