Why Classroom Talk Matters More Than Ever - Compass PD, LLC

By Dr. Natalie Fallert

I have twin 16-year-old boys, and for the past at least five years my husband and I have struggled in private conversations together and in one-on-one and family conversations with our boys about their utter lack of effective communication. Mind you, I have an undergraduate degree in Communication Management/Public Relations, worked in radio, and have taught secondary speech, drama, and language arts. One would think that my kids would be pretty good at this–not so much! Most of the time, our complaints come from the inconsistent facial expressions and body language that accompanies the verbal noise escaping their teenage lips. As a parent this is infuriating, but as an educator and researcher there are specific things that I feel have contributed to this and exacerbated it more than the typical annoying behavior associated with adolescents. 

Many of us at Compass have recently read Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (2024). I also had my family listen to the audiobook on a recent drive to Florida. Too many pieces of his research resonated with my husband and I as we are parenting kids born right in the midst of this technology explosion. One thing he defines is the Real vs. Virtual World. 

Here I want to draw specific attention to the first and last to explain the importance of not only communicating in classrooms, but making a concerted effort to integrate it daily and explicitly teach these detrimental life skills. 

Embodied vs Disembodied

The first differentiates the two worlds as embodied versus disembodied. My kids, who are not nearly as addicted to their phones as some of their peers, greatly lack the nonverbal communication skills necessary to socially function. It is interesting because they can read my body language accurately, but they cannot accurately match their feelings to their own body language. It is a constant, daily cycle of coaching that occurs in our house in an attempt to curb this. Haidt’s comparison highlights how much of a message is more than words. 

Jeff Zwiers coauthors two books about academic conversations: one geared toward K-3 and the other toward 4-12. These books explain that in general, younger kids’ conversation skills are and have always been underdeveloped in elementary grades, but with the rise of technology and parents also spending increased times staring at screens or offering them to their children there is even less practice and modeling at home (2018). Therefore the lack of face-to-face conversations has changed the quality of interaction between people. I am not sure I need any better proof than a simple flip of a channel, swipe of a reel, or a scroll of a post to demonstrate this phenomenon in our current world. 

Zweirs explains that face-to-face conversations include active listening, empathy sharing, negotiating, and the building of ideas (2024); it is not just the words being spoken. In a 1967 study of communication, Dr. Mehrabian found that 93% of communication is non-verbal, which may seem like outdated research, but multiple studies have taken place since, and the findings still report that 60-90% of meaning is derived from nonverbal communication (DeVito, 2014; Verderber, MacGeorge, & Verderber, 2016). These are skills you can only practice and master through actual face–to-face communication with real-time feedback. 

In a TEDx The Power of Nonverbal Communication, Joe Navarro says: “The only way to be truly empathetic is by understanding non-verbals.” He quotes Carl Sagan “All we are is the sum total of our influence on others” and the primary way we influence others is through nonverbals because the touch of a hand can communicate love in a way that words cannot (2020). 

Three key aspects of nonverbal communication are

• We respond/adapt to others through nonverbal messages.
• Nonverbal is usually more believable than verbal.
• Nonverbal is the primary way we communicate feelings and attitudes.

When we understand that nonverbal communication is more believable than verbal, it should be evident the importance of teaching students how to respond and adapt in any situation, but specifically in ones that provoke high emotions and feelings.  

High Bar vs Low Bar

The second Real vs. Virtual World comparison worth noting is the high bar for entry and exit vs. the low bar for entry and exit. My boys live in a world of “just block them”, “ghost them”, “unfollow”, or “unfriend”. With the click of a button or swipe of a finger their problem is silenced. They don’t have to “think”, “consider alternative approaches”, “be empathetic”, “learn to negotiate”, etc. 

We see this in two aspects of our daily lives. Students and adults both see the public backlashing in comments on social media. We are inundated with people voicing their opinions and being publicly shamed by the masses. No wonder kids are silent when teachers ask a question or for their opinions in classrooms. Our current students have grown up in this world. Middle and high school students saw it at its worst through three controversial elections and a pandemic. Social media has actually silenced their voices. They are afraid or don’t know how to respond or share specifically in real-time face-to-face settings.

Haidt explains that kids today are living without real-world risk. Seldom are kids experiencing “butterflies in their stomach as they muster the courage to ask someone out” because a rejection through ghosting is safer than face-to-face (2024). To illustrate this fear and lack of communication skills let me share a story. 

Recently, I told my boys they could invite people over to hang out and swim. In my world, I would have sent one large text message that said, “swim party at our house tomorrow”. Not today’s kids! My boys sent individual messages to kids that said, “if we have people over, can you come?”. What! Then I realized they have been trained to avoid social ridicule at all costs. All it would take is one person replying “no” or even worse, the silence, waiting for one brave soul to break in and say “yes” or “no”. 

In a world revolving around “favorites”, “filters”, and “For You” pages, individual views and perceptions are living in an echochamber of social media. It has created a “I’m right, you’re wrong” mentality. Creativity and critical thinking will thrive in diverse settings, but it will stagnate in homogeneous ones. A classroom is a perfect space to provide diverse students and thoughts if the right environment is cultivated. I truly believe that in most classrooms across our country we have unintentionally created or allowed for “filters” or silenced voices in our classrooms.  

In the book Unlocking the Power of Classroom Talk, authors Frazin and Wischow explain that “talk is a skill that can be taught, and learned, and improved upon”. It only happens through “instruction, coaching and deliberate practice” and is a “skill that crosses content areas–it’s transferable–so it’s important for all of us” (2020). Whether you are teaching in a classroom or an administrator in a building, I encourage you to keep an eye out for true classroom conversations. Where do you see students talking, responding, debating, agreeing, disagreeing, and building on or challenging others’ ideas? If you walk the halls, peek in rooms, or listen in for one day, will you see this? If you don’t, you should suspect that this is the norm, which means our children will spend 180 days in silence. Every question we ask, every discussion we facilitate, and every gesture we model helps students practice the communication skills that will empower them long after they leave our classroom. Now is the time to start this work. 

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