Comment by eszed
18 days ago
Yep. I gave a similar speech on the first day of every English 101 class I ever taught. (Though, damn, I wish I'd had as concise a formulation as your list of skills. Nicely done.) In my case I largely hoped to head off the resentment that STEM majors frequently expressed about how come they were required to take something so irrelevant to their eventual careers as writing. It sometimes worked.
I didn't get to take English at college, but I've spent a lot of my career writing and training. I've written a couple text books, and more documentation than I care to remember.
Writing well is definitely a skill worth learning. Communication is the single most important thing to career advancement.
You and I both know that! Try explaining it to 18-year olds who hate writing° and think coding / maths / lab-work is all they'll ever need. It doesn't go well.
°The real problem was that they didn't read. Sadly, I could pretty much predict the grade-distribution on the first day of class with one question: "have you ever read anything for fun?"
The students who regularly read books and magazines (hell, even comic books) were going to get As, once they figured out how to put an argument together. The kids who'd maybe read Harry Potter a few years back (this was ten years ago) would end up with Bs, or Cs if they slacked off. The STEM folks who read technical manuals were solid Cs, and Bs if they worked at it. The at least half who'd literally never read anything outside the classroom were going to struggle to pass. I taught my ass off, and spent unlimited office hours with anyone who'd come to them, but there's only so much that class-work can do.
This article makes it sound like it's only got worse since.
I hear you. I can write docs, but I can't make you read them :)
I'd abstract this and say that communication is key, but the form of communication can vary. People who don't read don't value that form, and don't write. They may prefer the video approach (ie show and tell.) They consume video and these days with Zoom create video as well.
Of course video isn't always a good way to communicate. It lacks searchability unless well chaptered (and transcribed). AI is helping with that.
Writing is also easier to store, and consume, non digitally. So it's more "permanent".
Your insight though is useful. People who don't read don't value writing as important. And maybe in the future it won't matter. And yeah, you're getting them too young, before they've really come to grips with the real world and it's requirements.
If it's any consolation I read voraciously as a child, didn't take English at college, and got (my only) C for English in high school. So you never know what seeds you are planting or how they'll grow.