The Reason for Writing
The best way to teach them anything is to get them to write about it because there isn’t any difference.
Writing is just thinking on paper. Thus, teaching people to write will enhance their cognitive abilities and see their thoughts through their fingertips.
I think perhaps one of the most interesting things to me about universities is that no one really explains to students ever why they have to write something. Every single assignment in university is almost without fail an act of writing, with zero explanation needed or asked. I’ve had so many friends receive assignments in scholarship and they will say ‘I had to write something for this’ without asking or being given any explanation for them to write that certain thing, and why. But once you clarify why you have to write something, it suddenly makes students want to actually want to write it and that there is value beyond the grade, that I feel is truly more human.
We think in order to function — to do something in the world — to achieve what we want, to avoid what we don’t want. We think in order to succeed at everything we undertake. We consider this because thinking is vitally important for our existence and living. It is something that can make or break us in life.
But if you can think, and talk, and write … your name on the track list, you are untouchable. You can do anything if you are skilled in thinking, speaking, and writing. If you are good at communicating in these ways, you can achieve any objective you want to pursue.
If you can communicate an argument if you can stand in front of an audience and present your ideas, they will trust you with money, they will trust you with opportunity, and you will have a voice. Cogent communication is the passport to opportunities, and to success generally, whether we are thinking of business or leadership.
Teach them to be expressive because it is the most dangerous thing you can possibly do. Articulate people have power and influence. So, articulation classes benefit you in life.
Why do you bother to learn to write? Well — look here — you gotta get your sword … you gotta get your M16 … boy, this is yours, here you are, here’s your bulletproof vest — this is your (pretend weapon), learning to write. That’s all this is. this is, this is the device, to get through to the world.
It’s perplexing to me why that’s not self-evident I’ve been puzzling over why this should always be so; why it isn’t self-evident why writing and communications matter.
Yes, I’ll pretend to teach and you can pretend to learn because the relationship between teaching and learning gets distorted when the real value of communication and writing isn’t understood.
People are conspiring to bring people to our school system to weaken them Some people believe that school failure is failing to teach essential soft skills and instead: a failing to teach essential soft skills and instead, furthering a cycle of weakness.
In short, the passage emphasizes the effects of these skills of writing and communicating and highlights their importance in teaching, not to mention in life more broadly as well.