Ed.
A podcast covering topics related to education, communication, and beyond. Smart and frank conversation about topics that matter to students, faculty, and community.
Ed.
Episode 13- Speech Communities (Differences in Communication between people)
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This month on Ed. Andy and Twyla sit down with Jeremy Coffman, Speech Professor at Prairie View A & M University to talk about the concept of speech communities, what they are, how they effect us, and how we can work within them to communicate better with those around us. All of this on Episode 13 of Ed.
The views expressed in this episode are those of the host, co-host, and any guests. They do not reflect the views or values of Lone Star College. For further information about Ed. Please visit our website at www.ed.buzzsprout.com.
Ed. was produced by Andy Luster and Twyla Coy, Music Provided by Liborio Conti.
These things.
SPEAKER_02No, we never taught that in school.
SPEAKER_01Dad, you're not taught in school. Dad never sits you down in school. Dad never sat down and said, Do this. The son, when you're using urine, always leaves you. That's not something you pick up.
SPEAKER_02This month on Ed, Andy and Twila sit down with Jeremy Kaufman, speech professor at Prairie View AM University, to talk about the concept of speech communities, what they are, how they affect us, and how we can work within them to communicate better with those around us. All of this on episode 13 of Ed. And we are here with episode 13 of Ed. All right. Happy summer. Happy summer. Yes, it is uh it is the lovely uh June currently. Um my birth month.
SPEAKER_00Happy birthday.
SPEAKER_02Yes, a day before, a day before I turned 45. Uh, but we are here uh and we are finally going to bring you an episode that I think we've teased twice, and it hasn't happened, but now we are finally doing it. It is on the lovely idea of speech communities. And you're probably wondering what the heck is this thing that Andy has talked about in the outro twice. And so we're finally going to be able to discuss that. And so that's what we're doing today. But first, I want to introduce our guest. He is a speech professor at Prairie View AM University. I want to welcome my friend for about, oh gosh, probably at least 15. At least, at least 15 years, uh, Jeremy Kaufman. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. And then, of course, Twila is here as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, glad to be here.
SPEAKER_02Glad to be here too in June. Uh, when we're not supposed to be here. We don't have to be here, but we're here.
SPEAKER_01Here for the love of the game. Yes. Always here.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely for the love of the game. So, as I said, we're talking about speech communities. And speech communities are basically how we talk. Um, and it's how we talk in a particular community. So, Julia Wood um is one of my favorite interpersonal scholars. Uh, she's from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
SPEAKER_04I love her.
SPEAKER_02I absolutely love her. I've met I like my dream was to meet her when I was a young scholar, and I finally got to meet her and I was really excited. And she's like, You want to go, you know, go hang out? I'm like, sure, yes, yeah, absolutely. I want to go hang out. Um, and she was just the most down-to-earth, amazing person I got to meet. Uh, but Julia Wood, uh, in her textbook, uh Everyday Encounters, came up with a concept that's loosely based on a concept from the 1970s uh that were called discourse communities. And that was by uh Langer in 1953, Gosh in 1979. So pulled around in about 1979. Uh, and then in in later on, she came up with this idea that there are now speech communities. And she's postulated this for a very long time with this idea that basically whatever types of things we've done growing up, and she related it to gender first, whatever types of things we did growing up, so whether it was, you know, the games that we played, whatever type of environment we were put in, that's the type of communication that we tend to have as we move forward as adults. So if you played more feminine games when you were younger, things like house, school, uh I'm trying to think of you know some of the other ones that I remember playing with my cousins, because my cousins loved playing house in school.
SPEAKER_00I played school all the time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was it was communication. They were communication games. So basically, they were games that you would play that didn't have any rules, very loosely based on anything. And it's sort of like, let's live the real life and let's talk about how to let's communicate that way. And that those tended to be more feminine communication games. And then you have masculine communication games like tag, uh, war, uh, I don't know what that games would you play? Cops and robbers, cops and robbers, any type of sports to any type of thing that involved rules. So anything that involved rules and and it was guided tended to be more of a masculine communication pattern. So as adults, you have masculine communicators, and I'm using the terms masculine and feminine because it didn't matter if you were, you know, a boy, girl, you know, whatever growing up, didn't make a difference. All that mattered was the games you played. Because you played some of those games, and plus, you the that you know kind of matched what your personality was. As an adult, you tend to have a communication pattern as an adult, as you're masculine, to be very uh all about rules. I'm communicating to fulfill a purpose, I'm communicating to get something done. Whereas feminine communicators are communicating to build relationships, to have more of a solid foundation of communicating and talking with each other. So Julia Wood came up with this idea, this binary of this idea, and then it branched out, and it branched out to this idea of it's not just gendered speech communities, right? It is also the communities that you belong to in terms of your co-cultures.
SPEAKER_00What do you mean by co-cultures? Tell me more.
SPEAKER_02So when we think of co-cultures, we're thinking of the things that you like to do. So if you're a gamer, you you like to game, that's a co-culture. That's a di that's there, it's part of American or whatever type of culture that you're a part of. And are you know, I know we have plenty of listeners in other countries, so whatever country you're in, I'm sure you have gamers. Those gamers have the same communication patterns, like we still communicate the exact same way, we use the same language.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Does not matter if you're in India, doesn't matter if you're in Egypt, doesn't matter if you're in the UK, doesn't matter if you're in Ireland, doesn't matter if you're in Boston, doesn't matter if you're in Texas. Makes no difference, still use the same language, still communicate the same way.
SPEAKER_00And if you're not a gamer, like I am not a gamer, I was just listening to two people who were gamers and or Pokemon gamers, and I had no idea what was going on. No. Because it's I'm out of that community.
SPEAKER_02Because that's another part of it, is that outsiders don't understand the communication that's taking place. So if you're an outsider, you don't get it. And if you're in if you are an insider and you you're part of that community, you doesn't matter what geography. Geography is not a part of it. It's just you have the same rules for communicating, you have the same understanding of communicating. And that's why games like Magic the Gathering are popular all across the world. Because everybody understands exactly how the game is played, everybody understands exactly the rules, the language, all the etiquette of everything that goes along with it, because that is the community that they belong to.
SPEAKER_01And it doesn't just have to be any kind of game or even rules-based. Uh, it could be any sort of hobby or pastime that you enjoy, can be a cool culture. For instance, my wife is a biker, and you know, she'll talk about patched, unpatched, this, that, and the other. And I have to be like, honey, what what does that mean? I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never even been on a motorcycle, right? So uh, and it can be if you think of the hobby that that you do, and you think about talking about someone else who is also in that hobby, you probably, if you think about it, you have language that you use that they would understand that someone who doesn't do that might not. And that's right there what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_02That's exactly what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00So, speech communities, why are they important? You've kind of defined them for us. Why are they so important for us to understand?
SPEAKER_02I think they're important for us to understand for a lot of different reasons. And obviously, this is an educational podcast. So the idea is that we, the three of us in this room, we are a part of a community of faculty. You are a member of a faculty at Prairie UAM University, Jeremy. Your understanding, your beliefs, everything like that goes around with the type of faculty who are there, but is the same types of things that the two of us here at Lone Star believe as well.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Like we all three of us have a communication understanding. We use the same same types of communication, we have the same language as educators. We use things, things like pedagogy. We use words like um epistemology. Like we all understand what those terms mean. Students, if we use those terms wrong, what the heck are you talking about? What what what is that? What's epistemology?
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02What's what's why are you talking about, you know, Korax and Tisius to us? I don't I don't get this. Like, what is this? Because not only we're part of two communities, we've got the education part and we have the speech part.
SPEAKER_00Right. And I think that's a really important thing. And I don't know if we'll talk about it in this section or the next, but when we acknowledge the vocabulary and and some of the uh language that we are using that perhaps the people that we're talking to do not, we will do something called code switching, or we'll accommodate our communication to reach our audience.
SPEAKER_02And we'll talk about some of those examples of code switching in the next segment. But I just want our listeners to sort of understand what this is and what this is all about and why we're having this conversation. Because I think when you think about the differences that exist between faculty and students, you think about the differences that exist between feminine and masculine communicators, it's hard to communicate back and forth between these people because you don't understand where they're coming from, you don't understand how they're communicating, you don't understand why they're communicating the way that they are. And this is basically what the basis of interpersonal communication is all about is trying to bring these people together. So why not have a conversation about it in a podcast?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Yeah. So I think I have a book called How to Listen So People Will Talk. And it kind of just bridges the the gap between really listening so that people will continue to talk, but also it really understanding where people are coming from. Um I think it's important when we're in these speech communities to understand that we don't always fully understand if we're uh in the same community or even if we are bringing outsiders into the community. We really have to listen to understand and to get keep people talking.
SPEAKER_02And that's another issue that goes along with speech communities is I think there are certain communities that listen a lot more than other communities do. And that's something we can discuss after this. And we're back. And I thought about this in the break, and I thought about, you know, why is this probably the most important thing that I wanted to talk about? Because I had it on the board for a long time.
SPEAKER_00You have.
SPEAKER_02And I think the reason that I feel like this is the most important thing, and I I don't know why it took me this long to finally get this out, but I really think that it's important because understanding where somebody else is coming from is probably the first step of bridging the gaps that we have in our society at the moment. We have so many gaps in society, we have so many turmoil in lots of different formats, men versus women, um, you know, politics, I'm not going to go deep into that. Um, but all of these other situations where there's so much non-understanding that takes place. And if we just take a second and understand where somebody else is coming from, just by understanding what their communication patterns are, I think that leads a long way to being able to bridge those gaps.
SPEAKER_00I I really appreciate that. I I appreciate where you're coming from, where you're coming from, because you're you're saying that speech communities really will show your lived experience. Like the way you communicate will tell us your perception of reality, your understanding of the world around us, and by sharing those with others is right. Am I understanding that? Yeah, that's exactly what it is.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So I mean, let's start with men and women. Let's let's go there first. I think that's that's where we're gonna spend a minute to talk. Like one of the things that we talk about, and when I I talk about in my class, and this is one of the things that I give, I give men the biggest piece of advice, because I think we're the ones who have the biggest problem.
SPEAKER_00No, that's not fair. That's not fair.
SPEAKER_02Sometimes, sometimes. Uh, but it is, and and it it really is just sort of a lit, it's a listening problem. And we talked about that at the end of the last segment. We talked about listening. The idea is is that you know, I'll bring up the situation. So if you have a situation where your significant other comes to you, and and let you're in a heterosexual relationship, your significant other comes to you and they say, I have a problem, and you're a man, what is your first instinct?
SPEAKER_01Try to fix it.
SPEAKER_02Try to fix the problem. Because that's what our communication patterns have told us to do. Our communication has said we're supposed to fix it. Is that what you want to have happen?
SPEAKER_00Not always. No, not always, but I want to jump in real quick because I want to go back to what you said in segment one. What you said in segment one was that men and women isn't what you're actually meaning to say.
SPEAKER_02No, it's true. Masculine and feminine. It is masculine and feminine.
SPEAKER_00There are some women who have a masculine feminine listening style, right? So, but yes, there those are those are stereotypes and those are those are generalizations. But yes, a lot of times there are the fixers, those that have that masculine communication style. They are the fixers. And sometimes I don't want that. Sometimes I want somebody to just listen.
SPEAKER_02Listen, you just need somebody to listen. Right. Because honestly, and I and I tell this to the I tell this to the men in my class, I tell this to the women in my class, human beings can fix their own problems.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02We know how to do it. Sometimes we just want to talk about it. Like, why why can't we just talk about it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. In in this book by Julia Wood, Gendered Lives, Communication, Gender, and Culture, it reminds us that communication has two levels of meaning, right? There's the content and then there's the relationship. And I think what we're talking about here is the fact that sometimes we're not listening just for the content. We're listening for what's not being said, not just the the words, but the relationship. Sometimes I'm bringing you problems because I care about you and I care about just sharing the the things that are going on in my life with you. Not because I need you to fix my problems, but because I want to connect.
SPEAKER_02And the other thing is that masculine communicators also walk into situations where, you know, when they're with again, somebody will come to them, their their significant other will come to them and say, I wanna I I want to talk about us. And all of a sudden that red flag goes up and it goes, Oh no, this is the end, it's over.
SPEAKER_00My husband panics every time I just say, Now, let's talk, or about what you said, even if it's just something benign, it's just there is that a little bit of panic, even just saying, Let's talk.
SPEAKER_01Meta communication can be stressful for a lot of people. Yeah, and talking about talking is sometimes a really heavy subject. Um yeah, I'm I'm usually the one that starts that in my in my relationship with my wife. Yeah. And she's like, What did I do?
SPEAKER_00Nothing. It can be stressful.
SPEAKER_02And that, you know, that's kind of interesting because I I come, I I think that I have a combination of communication styles.
SPEAKER_04I think I've been.
SPEAKER_02I'm very much a masculine and a feminine, like both. Um, but uh it's it's because I understand, it's because I've taught her personal for so long. I do understand what's going on. So I think that's you know, part of that. But I think the other thing is I have seen so many relationships fall apart for that very reason. Because the one person in that relationship doesn't want to talk about the relationship.
SPEAKER_01I I want to try to clarify something though. Um I do think it's important to understand that when we talk about like masculine, feminine communication types, it's not a binary one or the other. Like you're not a masculine communicator or a feminine communicator. Everyone is has a combination of both, right? There's there are times where even the most feminine communicator will go into problem-solving mode, and then there are times where the most masculine communicator will just want to sit and have a conversation, right? So it's it's it's not always one or the other. We're all a combination.
SPEAKER_02But I think there's a dominant. I think everybody does have a dominant, yes.
SPEAKER_01Just like you're some people can use both hands. We all use both hands, but there's you're either righty or lefty most of the time.
SPEAKER_00And I think, do you think that we switch depending on the situation?
SPEAKER_01Definitely. Depends on um depends on uh even what you're doing in a particular what what it's called for. Like I would say personally, um, at home, I tend to be more of a masculine communicator, but when I'm teaching, I tend to take a more feminine communication approach.
SPEAKER_00Right. I agree. I think that that it and as a skilled or competent communicator, I think we have to be able to switch.
SPEAKER_02I think I'm the same way. I think I that's that's sort of the way I communicate. Although I'm I don't know, my wife is a masculine communicator. So is mine. So I I I take a back seat sometimes and just like, nope.
SPEAKER_00Dude, it's really interesting that you say that because I think I'm I'm the opposite. I think I'm more of a feminine communicator at home, unless I have to take on more parenting, right? We'll give some parenting examples in a little bit. But then at work, sometimes I have to take on more of a masculine. And I think that there's some societal expectations. And perhaps because I'm a woman in the workforce, um, maybe I have taken on some of those masculine communication styles as a necessity or or whatever.
SPEAKER_02I think that's true for me outside of teaching. Like when I'm not teaching, I take on more masculine communication patterns. But when I'm teaching, I think I just jump into this nurturing. Let's talk, let's talk. I want to talk. I want to toss in here, let's have a good time. Like this is what's this is what education should be about.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02But yeah.
SPEAKER_00So we're talking a lot about the differences in communication. Um, what other differences, other than gender, like what other communities or or differences are there in communication?
SPEAKER_02We've brought up gaming. I mean, we may as well bring up gaming as well. I think, you know, Jeremy and I are gamers, and we were, you know, before we started, as you said, you you kind of got lost in what we were talking about. Completely lost. When we're sitting and talking about IVs and tapping the cards and uh three mana and counter spells, and I don't think completely tuned out because I have no idea. Yeah, tune out because you have no idea because that's you know, but we could have this conversation again with anybody. We could have it with anybody in Germany who's playing Magic. We could have a conversation with anybody, and I went to Pokemon GoFest in Chicago recently, and there were people from Japan, there were people from Germany, and you could hear everybody's accents, but you could hear everybody say the same things. Yeah, like you could hear everybody say IVs and you know, oh, I got a Shundo, or I get you know all of these things. And it, you know, outsiders who are walking are just like, what are these people talking about? Who are these people?
SPEAKER_00But it is really neat that that speech community bridges the cultural gaps between all of these different people.
SPEAKER_02But it's funny, like if I talk to somebody and sit down and I say, you know, I play Pokemon Go and they're like, Oh, what's that? You have a conversation with them and you explain to them a little bit, they're genuinely curious and they want to know and they're interested. And I think, you know, I've brought a few people into the game because of that.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02So I think you know, when you when you show a genuine if you show a genuine interest and you show that you're you want to learn about something, maybe that's you know, then you become a part of that particular community.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02Uh, but it also depends on what type of barriers those types of communities put up.
SPEAKER_01I was about to say that, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I think that for magic in particular, magic is a very big barrier against women in that community. Because it's a very masculine community. And it stinks because there are some great magic players who are women who still who have left the game, who have left because of that particular barrier, because they don't feel comfortable because the the communication patterns are just not what they, you know, were hoping that they would be not inclusive.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02And it's you know, it stinks when those types of communities put up those types of barriers. Right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I had the I had a similar issue with magic when I, but not with uh not with gender, but with age. When I was young, young, I was like maybe nine or ten. I was playing Pokemon and I really didn't like Pokemon, so I wanted to play Magic. And every time I would sit down to play a game, it'd be like, You're too young for this. This is yeah, yoga, go play a baby's game. And I was just like, I I enjoy this game more. And it's And you're probably better than them. It made it it made it hard to play, and it, you know, but it is what it is, you know. And I think that's true of any community. Like you said, you managed to get people into the game because you were welcoming and you wanted to answer those questions, and you didn't go, oh, you're wasting my time or something like that. Or how did you not already know? This sort of sort of thing, you know. So I think being welcoming is a way to get people into a speech community. But some speech communities also are very protective of a very protective community because people can try to infiltrate those communities and work against them from the inside. Um, and so that can happen.
SPEAKER_02And I think that does happen with some. I wouldn't say that's gaming is not. But I would definitely say, like, if um I'm trying to think of a good example of this, but like I don't know why spies come to my mind. But I mean, yeah, I'm sure that you know spies have a speech community. I don't know what it is. I'm sure they don't want anybody else to know what it is.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, I mean, any community that's based on keeping secrets, I mean that's gonna happen, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I yeah, I think that any of them can, but even certain communities, like you can think of certain uh industries of work, have their own language and their own barriers to entry, right? Oh, yeah. So those are those are ones that could keep people out or keep people in, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, my dad was a truck driver and they had they had lingo and things like that. And I don't, you know, they they don't want it's funny if you've ever watched Smokey in the Bandit, it's almost the kind of the same thing. You're on the CV radio and you're you know using that type of lingo to get away from the smokies, the smokies, the cops who are on who are trying to to do that. And it's funny, like we talked about this before, but police, like, and we're talking, okay. So I'm gonna I'm sort of gonna kind of shift it a little bit to this idea of code switching, because I know we were gonna talk about code switching, and I think, you know, first I'm sort of gonna need to discuss, you know, what that is. So we we change our communication in sometimes some situations to match whatever situation that we're a part of. And I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. I think in some situations it can be good. I think in some situations that you lose your identity uh when you do that. And I don't like that idea. I don't like that idea of losing identity, but I mean it it's it is something that people do. So um this, you know, the um the Cleveland Clinic has an article, What is code switching? And they talk about, you know, that idea of adjusting your identity to blend in or conform to a larger group so that you don't feel out of place. Um and they they give some examples of the types of things that we do that for. We do it for race, ethnicity, religion, social and economic circumstances, level of education, sexual orientation, ability status. And I think about you know, some of those, some of those things. I'm like, I've done code switching for probably all of them. Right. I've probably changed, you know, I think the one that popped out to me for some reason was the sexual orientation one because my best friend, he's homosexual. I've I've gone with him to the bars in Chicago, and I just remember, you know, sort of, you know, trying to fit in and just being like, hi, how are you? And just being very genuinely nice. Um, but that also led to being hit on as a as a heterosexual male. And it was just like, no, I'm not interested. Thanks. Right. And they're like, why? I'm like, I'm I'm you know, I'm heterosexual. And they're like, no, you're not. You're you're talking like, you know, you're talking like us. I'm like, yeah, because I'm I'm here and I'm trying to fit in.
SPEAKER_01Right. I think a lot of code switching has to do with whether you feel like you're forced to or not. I think a lot has to have has to do with it because a lot of it has to do with power dynamics. Right. Um, if you are because like we were I was giving the example before uh during the break of that, you know, if you've ever been pulled over and you know the cops in behind you, lights are on, and you're sitting there going, Oh God, what am I gonna do? You're not talking like you're gonna talk when that window goes down. No. The minute that window goes down, hello officer, how are you doing today? And before that, you're sitting there going, son of a okay, what did I do? You know, and that immediate switch that you have is code switching, but you're not doing it because you want to. You're doing it because you're conforming to a someone who has more power than you, especially in that given situation. Um and so if you feel like you have to switch, that can be much more stressful and where you feel like you lose your identity more so than if you're doing it to blend in with your friends or something like that. Like uh my my friends would always make fun of me with my grandpa when he was still alive. He was very southern Louisiana sharecroups, sharecropper, and I talk like I do now. Like this is my normal accent. But as soon as he would call, they would laugh because I would pick up the phone and I would literally go, Hey Pa, how you doing? And they would just start giggling and I'd be like, Shut up. But it wasn't that I was doing it because I felt like I had to. I was doing it because that's just how my grandpa talked, and I wanted to talk to him how he talked, you know. Right. Um, and that's that's not a problem. And I don't think most people have a problem with that.
SPEAKER_02Well, when I was teaching at McNeese and I was teaching future broadcasters, teaching those future broadcasters, it was just like you guys have to lose your accent. It's gotta happen. Like if you're in a anywhere in the country, it doesn't matter where you are, you have to have the middle, you have to have the mid, you have to have the midwestern, non-aligned accent. Coming up at five. Coming up at five, exactly. You have to have the mid, I have it. You hear me, I'm talking, I have it. Why do I have it? It's because I was born in the Midwest. Um, but you I I had to teach people how to change their voice so that it didn't sound southern. Right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I had to eliminate my southern accent for debate a long time ago as well. Like, if I take off all my filters and just talk like normal, this is how I would sound that real thick text and twang. But you can hear me code switching here on the mic. This is what I my default because I don't use that because I'm afraid of the negative stereotypes that come along when you hear someone talk like that.
SPEAKER_02And I I hate it sometimes. And and it's funny because like you and I used to teach, or I used to teach, you still teach, and at a uh HBCU, historically black college. And it it was definitely having to teach students that there are times when you are gonna have to code switch, and it it stinks because it takes away an identity, takes away that identity from those students. But it's also walking to that classroom and saying, you don't have to do that here. I love this is your place.
SPEAKER_00I love that you actually mentioned that you don't have to do that here. But tell me when you would tell students, because I've didn't done the same, when is it appropriate or even necessary to code switch?
SPEAKER_02Job interviews, uh working even in the workplace, like in any type of workplace, you're gonna have to switch. You're gonna have to. When it is strategically valuable, yeah, when it's strategically valuable, and that's what I always told students when it's strategically valuable.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02But it could if it if you and it's funny, like I love the faculty, I love the faculty there. Because the faculty there would also tell, like, because there was, I know one instance where my boss had thought that she had to like move her jewel, and this is not necessarily communication, it is communication, it's non-verbal communication, it's non-verbal code switching, sure. Um, where she felt like she had to push her nose ring inside of her nose so that it wasn't visible when she was in a meeting. And her boss came to her and said, No, what are you doing? No, be yourself, right? Be yourself, and that's where we're always teaching our students there was to be yourself.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02But there are situations, and she, and of course, this person, my friend, felt that way that she had to to code switch because she felt like that was what the situation called for. Thankfully, it wasn't. Um, but that's that's that one, that example is that where you have to code switch for strategic purposes. Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think there's a lot of value in knowing when it's appropriate or necessary and then when it is not. We were having a conversation off the air about how it's important, not just verbally or non-verbally, but also verbally in our writing, teaching our students to keep their voice, especially in the age of AI, how important it is to not see seem so polished that you're wondering as a teacher, you're wondering, is this a robot or is this a student? Like, you know, we need a little authenticity and and I don't know, imperfection.
SPEAKER_02I enjoy when I get papers that are messed up. Right. Because then I'm like, oh, this person actually wrote it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, same, same here.
SPEAKER_02It's it's it's it used to be, oh I remember 10 years ago, it was like, oh, come on, learn how to, you know, didn't learn how to put this in the sentence. Now it's just like, yes, yes, it's a real paper. You're like, hey, oh my gosh, spelling error spelling error. Wow. Yeah, it's not how you're okay. It's real. Thank you so much for being real. Oh my gosh, are we dumbing down education because of that? I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I I was telling Jeremy that whenever I was teaching at the high school, I would tell my students that you need to learn the right way to do things, and then you need to be comfortable tweaking things to your own voice. I know that I don't use perfect grammar all the time. Um, and that's how I speak. And it's okay. I have the southern twang and I have the, you know, probably run-on sentences, and my English professor friends would probably just cringe to read some of my emails, but that's okay because that's how I speak.
SPEAKER_02Not just that, my text messages. Like I use dashes and text messages. Like I just when I send text messages, I'm like, you know, it's instantly me. Because like, oh, is there a dash? Yep, there's a dash. Andy's using dashes instead of periods. Yeah, I use ellipsies. I love the dot dot dot. I mean but dot dot dot and everything.
SPEAKER_01And you know, the thing is for me.
SPEAKER_02But I mean, that means I'm human. That means I'm not, you know, generating this through Siri. I'm not saying Siri, write this text message.
SPEAKER_01I I've always embraced the fact in writing, speaking, whatever, that perfection's impossible to attain anyway. Right. You know, uh, we're all gonna have our little errors, our little spelling errors, our little quirks, you know. Even a dissertation is proofread and proofread and proofread because we're gonna mess up. I mean, even the most perfect even the greatest, most prolific author out there has an editor, right? No one is gonna be perfect. And I think in the age of AI, embracing that imperfection, embracing that humanity is gonna become so much more important.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Absolutely. All right, so we have we've bridged uh our discussion into the different types of speech communities and you know how those different speech communities work, talked a lot about co-twitching. Next, we're gonna bring it back to education and talk about how students and faculty communicate differently right after this. And we are back. And before we get into education, uh Jeremy brought up a great example, and I want I want to talk about this. Jeremy, bathrooms.
SPEAKER_01So we were talking about speech communities, and we go back to gender. One of the things that uh I always bring up in all my classes, a great example I like to talk about is Guy bathroom code. And I don't know how it is in other countries, but if you are in America and you are a man, you know, if you go to a men's bathroom, you know the rules for that bathroom. And to give a few that off the top of my head, you always leave space at the stall. If there are three stalls, you'd never pick the middle one. And if there is someone at a stall, you can pick, and same with urinal, if you can give space you will. No talking past the sink, unless it is purely task-oriented. And even then, it's awkward. You're never gonna turn to a guy friend and be like, hey, I'm gonna go to the restroom. You wanna come with me? That's not something that happens. And it can be funny because you can be in a mid-conversation with your best friend, and you both have to use the restroom. You walk in, yeah, did you see the movie last night? And as soon as you walk in, radio silence until you're washing your hands, and then also no eye contact in the bathroom, which is another one. And the thing I find interesting about it, and the reason I think it's interesting for the speech community perspective is because no one ever teaches us these things.
SPEAKER_02No, we never taught that in school.
SPEAKER_01Dad, you're not taught in school, dad never sits you down again. The son, when you're using urine, always leaves that's not something you pick up, you just learn it. And I think that's fascinating from a speech community perspective because you can be a part of a community and pick up behavioral patterns, nonverbal or regular communication patterns, and never be taught them or told the rules. So we were talking about gaming, and you know, gaming has a lot of rules, you know. Oh, you want to play this card, you need two mana or whatever. But then there are communities where there are very stringent rules, like in a guy's bathroom, where failure to break those rules could end in a physical altercation.
SPEAKER_02Um which is funny because one of the reasons that I never used the bathroom at Wrigley Field is because the bathroom at Wrigley Field is horse trough.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02They have in in the set, well, then not anymore. They've eliminated it, it's gone. Now they have proper urinals and things like that. But when I was when I had season tickets back in 03, and you know, when I was going to games and I was younger, I seriously they had a trough in the middle of the bathroom.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they used to have those here too.
SPEAKER_02And all you did was, yes, all you did was you know, z unzip and pee in the thing. Yep. Yep.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_02And I hated doing that. It was like because it went against the men's bathroom code.
SPEAKER_01But even I remember having the horse troughs like that. I think it was in the Astrodome. They had them here in Houston because I remember when I was a kid, and even then, it's dead silence.
SPEAKER_02Oh, like dead silence, dead silence, dead silence. The couple of times that I went in there, it was like, you could hear have heard a pin drop.
SPEAKER_01I've heard more sound at a funeral. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Oh my gosh, it's crazy. It's nuts.
SPEAKER_00But you're absolutely right. These communities, you don't have to say the rules out loud. A lot of them. Sometimes they they're unspoken and unwritten, and and everyone abides by them completely and wholeheartedly.
SPEAKER_02So that brings us to uh the last thing I wanted to talk about. I'm bringing it back to education. How do students and educators communicate differently? The biggest thing that you know I I think is the largest difference is there is vernacular that's obviously different, but I'm not thinking about vernacular, I'm not thinking about language, thinking more about actions. I'm thinking about the things that we do. And as educators, what's our like what's our biggest thing that we want students to do? We want students to obviously succeed and communicate, but we want them to fulfill the due dates. Due dates, due dates, due dates. Let's have due dates. I don't know what prompted us long ago as the beginning faculty members to say we need to have due dates. We need to have due dates for this and due dates for that. Students don't understand why we have due dates.
SPEAKER_01I would imagine the history dates back to me not wanting to go insane by having to grade all the work two days before it's due. Yes.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I'm sure that's pro that's probably the case. And that's where you know my perspective of it comes from. I don't want to be grading everything two days before I have to turn in grades.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But it is, it's it's a problem because students don't understand why we have due dates. And I don't know why. And it's funny, being a faculty member, I don't understand why students don't get it.
SPEAKER_00Huh. I'm I'm just thinking, first, I I'm gonna respectfully disagree. I don't think that's the most important thing that we want our students to find. My thought was learn.
SPEAKER_02But when I think about when I think about the difference, when I think about the biggest difference, the biggest difference that I notice probably more often than anything else is that it's the due dates. It's and students are always asking, why do we have to turn it in now? Like, why did we only get this much time?
SPEAKER_00I think there's even a bigger problem. I think that there are a lot of students that don't understand why, period. Like they don't understand the why behind the reasons that we do the things that we do. So let's talk about due dates first, right? So why we have the due dates, why we are assigning this project, the why of any of the things that we do, right?
SPEAKER_02But for the And we could explain it till we're blue in the face, right? And they still don't or still don't get the concept.
SPEAKER_01Well, I wonder, I wonder though, how many teachers sit down and actually explain, like, this is why we have a due date. And if we have different people might have even different ideas on that, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think they do. I think because for for mine, yes, it is also a so that I don't have to grade it all, but so that I can give you feedback so that you can go to the next iteration of the. Do it right. Right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I can give you the feedback to do the next thing right. Like, why am I only assigning three discussions in week one? Because I don't want you to go through three discussions and get zeros on all of them. Right. And then, you know, have discussion four and five, and you're still get zeros.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then there's also the perspective of um having the conversation back and forth with your other classmates. If you do everything and then log out, there, you know, so for the discussion part, but also there are a lot of professors who want you to have the the due date, as in for work, you're going to have a a deadline for things. And jobs are not going to accept things unless you have had a conversation with your boss about, and then only so many times, right?
SPEAKER_02But that's the other complaint I get from students. Why are you doing why are you relating this to the workforce? Why does this matter for the workforce? This is school. This isn't work. This is school.
SPEAKER_01And this is something I'm really big on is the silent curriculum, the idea that I'm teaching you things that aren't just on the syllabus. And one of those things is time management and sticking to these dates and the consequences that you deal with when you don't have it. And why are you treating it like work? Because you're not trained yet to be in the workforce. And when someone accepts you out of college, they want you to be ready to jump in, you know, not in the kiddie pool, but off the deep end. They want you to go. And if you can, you know, do all the calculations in the equations, but you can't meet a deadline, right? Then it's all meaningless.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And we've talked about that numerous times in this podcast. It's the same thing with attendance, which comes up again with all of them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. So so for the the speech community of faculty, we you know have this understanding with each other of these students need the extra responsibility and time management and all of this hidden curriculum that you're referring to. But our students, again, are perhaps outsiders and they don't understand the same things that we understand.
SPEAKER_01There's also, you know, multiple perspectives too. Like I'm I tend to be a little more easygoing on extending deadlines. Um and the reason for that, you know, is I know that students have five, six classes and they each have projects, they each have due dates, they each have choices and tests and jobs. And I think some teachers sometimes lose sight of that.
SPEAKER_02I do too. And that's why I'm very lenient on things like that too. Like if and future students who take me, um just like, did I say my name? But no, it's it's exactly, and I know you do the same thing. Like if you come to me, and and my my perspective is always if you come to me before the assignment's due, not after. If you come to me after the assignments due, it's like, well, you should have come to me before.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02If you come and talk to me before, I'd be more lenient. I'm not gonna, I'm no, I'm not gonna reopen it. No, I'm not gonna do that. It's not gonna happen. Right. But if you come to me before the assignment's due and you say, hey, like this is what's going on, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna open it up for everybody. I'm gonna say, you know what, we'll give everybody an extra two days.
SPEAKER_00But but I've also been in workforce in the workforce. I've had an absolutely amazing boss who over the last for uh forever, um, who when I come to the the people that I work for and say, this is what's going on in my life, I need some extra grace, um, they they give that to me. But I have to communicate with them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you have to communicate with them, exactly. Like, and I'm sure, like, you know, if and I've had the I can't like I I just remember when I was younger and I was in college, my dad had passed away when I was a junior in college, and I the next day I had a debate due. I went and did the debate. Should I have done that? Absolutely not.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02I got up in a girl's face who's in a wheelchair and just like just was just like, no, no, no. And afterwards, I apologized to her profusely. And she's like, No, it's fine. What happened to you? You're nice, you're a nice guy. I'm like, my dad passed away yesterday. She's like, Why are you here? Right. And then the teacher came up to me and said, Did I just hear that right? Your dad passed away. I'm like, Yes. He's like, Andy, why are you here? Right. Why are you here? And it's been you know, my sense of duty as a student was I, you know, and I had known like you can't make things up, you can't do this, you have to go and do things.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02So my sense of duty brought me to that.
SPEAKER_01I remember my first year teaching. I had a student, it was the last day for our informative speeches, and I had a student walk in, and he's normally cool, collected looking guy, and he was kind of sweating, looking real nervous. And I pulled him to the side and I said, Hey, I know your speech is due today. You're normally not this apprehensive. You okay? And he's like, Yeah, I'm sorry, just my wife's in labor, but I gotta get this done. And I was like, What are you doing here? Why are you here? I was like, go ask me now.
SPEAKER_02You students, and that's the other thing is students are so afraid to talk to us. Yeah, they're so afraid to talk to us, and I just and I tell students all the time, just come and talk to us.
SPEAKER_01And we're human, just communicate with us.
SPEAKER_02If you communicate with us and you come to me and you say what to tell, tell me what's going on, you don't have to tell me the whole story. You can just say, I have a family emergency. Right. You know what my response is gonna be? Go deal with your family emergency. Because again, like I still think family is should be the number one thing that you care about more than anything else. School and speech and everything else, and all the extracurriculars, everything else is below that.
SPEAKER_01Look at Maslow's hierarchy, I need to tell you that, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01We we teach that, we teach that, exactly.
SPEAKER_02And family should be the number one thing, and it's it's that skill, and you just see, like you can tell when a student is dealing with stuff like that. And it's like, just come and talk to me. Like it's not that big of a deal.
SPEAKER_01And you know, it works, it works both ways. I remember having a couple of times in my life in the middle of a class where things were going on on my end, and I went to my students and I said, Listen, I'm sorry I haven't got X graded, or I'm sorry that you know, this is I haven't been doing exactly 100% this. And they were so willing to show me grace. Absolutely. Don't worry about it, Mr. Kaufman. Take your time. And you we're gonna extend that back, you know. It's right any teacher that teaches college has been in the student seat. Right. We all know what it's like to be there, to have those stresses. So if you just talk to us about it, we're understanding because we've been through it.
SPEAKER_02Can't guarantee that every teacher is gonna be like that. But at least at least the ones in this room are. And I think that, you know, if you and most of the people that I know on this campus at least are like that. I some of the people I preview are like that. Uh, but yeah, most of them, yeah, most of them are like that. And it's you know, most of the people in calm are like that.
SPEAKER_01The only way you're ever gonna find out though is to talk to your professor and have them. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Like if you go and ask, like it's not the end of the world to just go and ask. And and honestly, don't get this mentality as a student. And I think this is a this is a communication pattern that students have. Don't get this mentality that is, I am going to ask for forgiveness later. Ask for forgiveness first. Don't ask for it later. Ask it, come and talk to us first.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I get that a lot uh from other people in other industries. Better to ask forgiveness than permission. No. Uh don't don't do that.
SPEAKER_02The other way around. Ask for permission before forgiveness.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Please.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think that this has been a wonderful conversation about speech communities. I've really enjoyed it. I've learned a little bit more perspective on gaming for sure. And uh about bit bridging the grap, bridging the gaps and and co-cultures and such.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I think this has been great. I want to thank you both for being here. Thank you so much for having me. We will see you next month. This has been Ed, a frank discussion about topics that matter in education. The views expressed in this episode are those of the host, co-host, and any guests. They do not reflect the views or values of Lone Star College. For further information about Ed, please visit our website at www.ed.buzzsprout.com. Ed was produced by Andy Luster and Twila Coy. Music provided by Laborio Conti.
