we can’t converse because the internet.

My Students Don’t Know How to Have a Conversation:

As I watched my class strug­gle, I came to real­ize that con­ver­sa­tional com­pe­tence might be the sin­gle-most over­looked skill we fail to teach stu­dents. Kids spend hours each day engag­ing with ideas and one another through screens—but rarely do they have an oppor­tu­nity to truly hone their inter­per­sonal com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. Admittedly, teenage awk­ward­ness and nerves play a role in dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions. But stu­dents’ reliance on screens for com­mu­ni­ca­tion is detracting—and distracting—from their engage­ment in real-time talk.

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