NASSP Bulletin

Speech courses originated at the college level. Inevitably, high school curricular con cepts and practices reflect this fact. The author takes the view, however, that secondary school speech education should not differentiate be tween college-bound and noncollege-bound students. Principals should avoid the tendency to ape college variety and specialization in speech and drama.

Business runs on communication. Hence businessmen are interested in every aspect of the communication process. Mr. Haakenson outlines the function and nature of business communication, the skills needed, the tech nology used, and the pedagogy that works.

Speech educators must recognize the special potential of each new piece of electronic com munications technology and they must realize that computers, mass media, and A-V aids can be used to complement rather than supplant the human interaction that young people want.

Since time immemorial, teachers have com plained about student apathy, lack of motiva tion, lack of interest in serious social problems. At last students are "turned on." But their manner of expressing themselves turns off people in authority.

If we are to save and improve what we have of the democratic process and improve society, says Mr. Haiman, we must find a way to capitalize on the new motivation of the young. He lists a number of essential preconditions, some of which may surprise you.

Only within recent years has the movement to establish behavioral objectives for speech communication become widespread. Yet the benefits for instruction and achievement are many. Here is a well-documented historical overview and status report, with suggestions for help in devising a systematically articulated set of objectives for communication behaviors in your secondary school.

Mrs. Mock makes an excellent case for two oral communications courses in the middle school: creative drama and group discussion for early adolescents. These group-centered activities can counter the trend toward the isolation of individualized instruction.

Mr. Frank outlines the objectives of a high school speech program using the communica tion approach and lists both general and specific behaviors such an approach may achieve. He also provides a useful bibliogra phy for speech curriculum building.

If Norman Cousins is right, that a prime weakness of education is inadequate attention to communications skills, then Miss Weirich's clear exposition of the philosophy, objectives, organization, and content of a first course in high school speech should be required reading for principals and curriculum committees in schools where speech is neglected.

Most real-life communications are oral. Few people speak with confidence, precision, and grace. Hence it is ironic, Mr. Allen believes, that speech instruction is carelessly entrusted to the co-curriculum and fragmentary teaching within the English curriculum. He makes a case for an "ideal speech curriculum" for all high school students.

Mr. Siscoe thinks of small-group discussion as a means of solving real-life problems, not as conversation or information dissemination. His outline of course objectives and his sug gested course units are based on this concept.

An activity as old as civilization, oral inter pretation is experiencing a classroom revival. A newer but related development, readers' theater is being widely adopted because it gives many different kinds of students an out let for their creative impulses without full- scale stage productions.

Are your better students turned off by an irrelevant or unexciting curriculum? The secondary school speech department may be able to help. Miss Mitchell describes promis ing practices under three headings: (1) crea tive expression in nonprint media, (2) ele mentary research, and (3) activities of social and interpersonal concern.

As a black professional, Mrs. Holt believes that emphasis on "black identity" must be our first order of business in high school speech courses. But she rejects the proposition that the black student become highly skilled only in black communication. Rather, she advo cates building a repertoire of communication devices his own culture does not provide, in the hope that a process of mutual linguistic accommodation may produce a language adopted as "ours" in both white and black cultures.

Here are a wealth of suggestions to help the secondary school teacher of students for whom English is a second language. Bilingual stu dents are indeed caught between two worlds. Without special attention, they may be perma nently handicapped.

Evaluation in speech communication differs greatly from evaluation in other school sub jects. Mr. Tucker analyzes the differences and discusses the issues in the area of speaker, listener, and group evaluation.

In this time when the need for change in education is everywhere acknowledged, much research is being conducted on the conditions conducive to reasoned and lasting change. Mr. Goldman reports on two such studies pertinent to the education enterprise.