There is a death knell for communication…I’ve heard it ring for years. Lots of people have quit communicating in any meaningful way and seem to resort to what we call “tweeting” in every day speech. My fear is the result: that children are losing the ability to listen and to respond, in other words, to communicate in a way that’s beautifully human, real, and rich.  In a time when we have more utilities for communication than ever before, are we throwing the skills and the desire away?

The question, of course, begins with is it true?  Do daily exchanges amount to thoughtless and vapid half remarks that are rarely taken in by those to whom they are aimed? Do we ever ask questions of one another that matter? Do we listen to inadvertent questions that we ask?  Have we come to despise the utterances of others? Would we rather put on head phones and listen to the same music over and over again just to escape a possible exchange with someone?

One of the joys of my life has always been spending “talk time” with a dear friend. Sitting quietly and talking with someone who matters to me has always been a delight. Family news, books read, films enjoyed, ideas exchanged, favorite foods talked of, and of course memories and stories told over a hot cup of tea and a nice piece of cake has, since I was a child, been my favorite time. Now, such an occasion is referred to as “dumping.”

My mother and I did not get along, and that’s a sad business, but when I was a little girl I LOVED sitting and listening to her talk to her friends about growing up. My mind was alive with what it must have been like when women wore long dresses…when medicine was as scary as it was. My mother’s funny stories about her life growing up was priceless to me. My mother and her friends would sit for hours over coffee and cigarettes…how much I learned…how delighted I was. How much I remember…all kept alive for myself because I am afraid I might commit the mega sin of “dumping.”

With a world limited to tweeting, where will children learn to listen? From television. I think people are all so afraid of “dumping,” that they tweet instead of discuss…children can’t learn from tweetings because tweetings don’t give enough information…cold, abrupt, insular, brief…so they turn on the television and are encouraged to watch parent like people who tell them stories…but they are not family stories, they are public stories, so kids are growing up without stories to really care about, so why listen after a while?

And television does not require a response, so the child has no place to take his questions should he or she have one. But he probably won’t have one because responding is the part of communication that usually follows a question, and if nobody asks a question, how is a child to learn to either ask one or answer one? Asking questions is at the heart of civilization. It’s in our very greeting: “How are you?” But the question can never be answered because someone might “dump.”

Is the demise of communication a matter of time? Do people simply not have time for others anymore? We see people race to work, to after work activities, to ball games, to children’s activities, to movies, parties, and shopping, but it’s all in a rush that has little if any communication involved. People sit mutely on bleachers afraid to talk to one another; walk miles of corridor in the mall never uttering a word to anyone; go to movies and sit and listen; exercise, exercise, exercise, and never a word exchanged…it amounts to a kind of planned isolation and children model parents, so children are destined to be isolated as well. As I watch them play together at school, eager for the natural exchange of one another…I lament their admission into the age of tweet….

With the isolation of tweetdom, we have a consequence…a vocabulary demise. Choosing the right word used to be a pleasurable art. Listening to someone speak who had a wonderful vocabulary is a rich and exciting experience. Listening to my father talk, then my husband has been one of my great adventures, because of their vocabulary and ability to make spectacular nearly any subject.  Now, less is more, fewer is better, get the point across quick…the sin of dumping is lurking…

With no questions asked, no responses required, no exchange in the offing, no stories learned or told, it’s a cold still world…OK, so the old lady is lamenting a slower time and a more colorful past…we all get there…so is there anything we can do to assure that the children we are rearing now will have something more than tweedom? At this point I really don’t know.

As a teacher, I will continue to tell stories to my children, to read books to my kids, to ask them questions and wait for the response and respond to their response…mostly because I love them and communication is important to me on a level they may never understand.