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One of the reasons I love studying communication is because we are always encouraged to address the difficult questions and dig a little deeper. I believe that in a lot of classrooms, no matter the subject, if a sensitive topic comes up, most instructors would avoid it and direct discussion back to subject matter. This being said, I also believe that these questions are less likely to come up in subjects such as math or science where classes are focused on content that is based on facts and numerical data. This might just be my personal opinion, but how boring would learning be if we never went below the surface?

Like every other subject, communication has its basics and fundamentals. People work the same way. People have their surface level selves in which you would base initial perceptions off of. However, we all know there's more to people than what we see on the surface. Communication studies encourages learners to always ask "why?" and talk about the sensitive topics.

I want my students to be able to ask difficult questions because I don't think they have a lot of other opportunities to do so, at least at school. However, to be able to address these topics in a productive way, that requires a lot of maturity and respect in the classroom. Well, yesterday I told my students to open to page 69 in their books and I quickly learned that we might not be there yet.

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It's pretty simple actually. I think there are a lot of kids who would rather not risk looking stupid than dig a little deeper and uncover some real knowledge. So how can we, as educators, fix this problem? I think this is the not so simple part. We can't force our students to dig deeper and ask difficult questions. For the most part, we are leading classrooms filled with first year students who have never met each other before this class and most likely have no relationship outside of the classroom. However,I think that having built a solid foundation in the classroom and having established some good relationships, we can pave the way for discussion about sensitive topics. If we ourselves go beyond the content matter and ask questions that require a little more thinking and reflection, and ones that kids might be afraid to answer, they will eventually learn the benefits.

I love talking about the tough stuff. My only hope is that my students reciprocate those feelings so that we can have meaningful discussion that really breaks the surface level and forces everyone to dig a little deeper. My philosophy for this particular concept would be something along the lines of, "grow up, get over yourself, and don't be afraid to ask the difficult questions... knowledge and discovery are cool, SO DIG PEOPLE, DIG!" And, as always... #keeponkeepinon