Isn’t the “R” Requirement Just Skills Training?

That a liberal arts college provides an education for the whole person does not mean simply, as a college catalogue somewhere puts it, that most students actively participate in athletics.  It means that its education is neither a narrow technical training (the vocational reduction), nor merely a sharpening of the faculty of reason (the intellectual reduction).  It describes a different paradigm for understanding in which the whole person must be consulted in matters that affect the person’s whole life, that the whole life must be consulted to understand the weight of decisions a person makes, and that the great decisions that face a whole community cannot be left to functionaries but must emerge out of the community’s deliberative engagement together.  The dream of some pristine thinking machine isolated from history, life and values has run its course, and we’re back to the ancient insight that in the most important matters the ‘whole person’ must be consulted. 

Within this frame of reference, the voice, the spoken word, has a critical function.  There are few human attributes so unique, so identifiable, and so capable of revealing what is distinctive and true about each of us as the voice.  When we hire a leader we don’t simply rely on their written statements and their resumé; we need to hear them speak to us and respond to our questions.  When we make an important faculty decision we don’t rely on e-mail; we have to face each other.  When we ask for the highest degree in our profession we have to defend our research before our committee.  When we face crises in our personal lives everything depends on how we respond to each other.  When we face crises in the life of the state, speaking and listening is primary.  When we respond to a great actor or vocalist or poet, everything depends on the breath, the inflection, the gesture, on finding the right word at the right moment.  Being able to stand up on your feet and defend yourself before a crowd in the moment, to distill a complex argument, to make a point forcefully and not fall into a muddle, to respond genuinely and generously to different points of view, to handle awkward situations gracefully, and complex negotiations effectively, this is the acquisition of a lifetime and not a mean skill.  A negligible achievement?  No, it could very well be the crown of a liberal education.  

But Our Students Get Plenty of Practice Talking Already

Denison students on average seem to have more than the average quotient of poise, maturity, and the gift of gab.  In comparison with their state college peers, many seem to the manner born when it comes to debate, public presentations, class dialogue.  But if you really listen to how most students talk in the classroom, it is normally a comfortable variant of dormspeak, a charming patois no doubt, but far from the developed language skill that will stand them in good stead as leaders of their communities.  Students often understand themselves better than we can understand them, because their shorthand has been developed to take the place of conventions such as evidence, warranted reasoning, compelling chains of logic, expository eloquence, developed and organized thoughts, etc.  Although they frequently elaborate vivid examples, it is hard for them to get the pay-off from these examples in a reasoned argument.  Many tend to speak in colorful sound-bites, or minimalist popcult references.  Although these idioms are often rich and fascinating discursive expressions. they are just as often truncated, half-conceived expressions of an incipient language skill.

It is certainly true that speaking competence is furthered by the exercise of writing, but there is nothing to replace the extemporaneous practice of bringing thoughts to life in the moment, under the pressure of the klieg lights, on one’s own hind feet.  If students can be brought to hear what they sound like and what they could sound like, we do them an inestimable service.  But this takes focused, systematic, reflective practice.

“The strongest and the most sensitive, the most penetrating and far-reaching, and the most fertile and withdrawn minds, all pour into speech their strength and their tenderness, their depth and their inwardness, and language re-echoes them. . .”    --Wilhelm von Humboldt

Note:  I’ve started a “Discussion thread” on eRes where you can respond to my Myths about the “R”.  I want this to be a free-wheeling dialogue for the campus community.

Just go to Eres, search my name (arthos), choose Comm 000, enter “oral” for password.