The Power of Cultural Literacy

 
"Why do I have to learn this? I'm never going to use it."

As a humanities educator, I bet I fielded this question a hundred or more times. And as a parent. And as a classmate.

And I get it. If I'm going to be a computer programmer, why do I need to understand the history of WW II? When will I ever worry about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, or the symbolism of the canary in Trifles?

For a long time, I brought up E.D. Hirsch's argument in Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. And, to a point, I still do. The argument, albeit much reduced, is that to be a functioning part of a society, Americans need to know what is relevant in the culture.

And it works. Case in point: During one class a couple of years ago, I went through my tired lecture about knowing the culture because, for example, students might one day have lunch with a boss who brings up an allusion in Moby Dick or Gone With the Wind, and it feels better to understand than to feel ignorant. Many students had heard of GWTW, but they didn't know anything about it.Some had no idea what I was even talking about. So, I gave very brief synopsis of the book. I explained how it commented on our culture, then and now, and why it was important in life and literature. I gave a very brief overview, just hoping that they got a basic introduction.

Several weeks later, I was chatting with students at the beginning of class. One of the students raised his hand, and when I addressed him, he said that he wanted to let me know that I was right.

Well, now. I liked the way this discussion was beginning.

When I asked him what I was right about, he referenced our earlier discussion on cultural literacy. He then proceeded to tell the story of recently having a conversation with his boss who mentioned Gone With the Wind. He was making a point, and, in doing so, he referenced GWTW. 

The student was happy because he felt in the know. He got the point, and, in doing so, he was able to respond appropriately to the comment. The student felt like the boss took note of his ability to engage in the conversation. For him, it was a big win, and he was incredibly appreciative that we had discussed it in class. At that point, another student asked if I could tell them a little about Moby Dick.


I love it when a lesson comes together like that. They had heard me preaching about the need for General Education in a technical college for so long, but they finally got to experience the benefits first hand.

There are other reasons, though, equally important.

In survey after survey, employers include critical thinking in their list of most desired qualities in an employee. They understand that the employee who can think beyond the basics is an employee who will grow and succeed. When employees grow and succeed, so do their companies. English teaches critical thinking. Students read Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and they can see past to the story line to understand a critique of controlling government or the dangers of putting technology ahead of humanity. They have the chance to search for clues to support their conclusions, and they have the chance to explain them in a way other people can understand.

The skills transfer to their careers. One day, they may field a call from a client who is having a problem. They will receive the story line, but the client likely won't spell out the clues. They will have to find those themselves. And the practice they had reading a book in English class will be put into practice in the workplace. They will solve the problem using the same mental skills they used in examining a novel.

We study History for similar reasons. History is really just stories of people. It teaches us how people have behaved in the past, and we strive to understand why. In knowing that, we can attempt to understand better their behaviors in the present or how they might behave in the future. We unconsciously attempt to understand the "why" of a person because we learned to understand that fear led to the Salem Witch Trials or that anger contributed to the Holocaust.

Learning material that is not seemingly relevant to us today is important. It allows us to see connections between the obvious and that which is implied. Or that which is unspoken, deliberately or not. Or that which needs to be uncovered.

It helps us to become thinking people instead of people who are simply good at following directions or staying on task. And that ability will empower us to chart our own courses instead of letting other people chart them for us. We control our destinies instead of letting other people define them for us.

I acknowledged to my students that getting through Moby Dick is no easy task, but understanding the philosophies that informed 19th century thought, including politics and culture, can help us to understand the policies and actions that led to an industrial age and two world wars. Familiarity with such an important classic in American literature and thought empowers us to be more familiar with others and with ourselves.

So, I gave them a very brief introduction to Melville's classic. I asked them to take note of the first line and to recognize the power we all have to name and define ourselves. "Call me Ishmael," and learn everything you can to better know yourself.

Communication and First Impressions

Today, let’s start with a cliché: You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

I’ve repeated that sentence countless time to students, especially when we were working on resumes and cover letters.

But I saw a post on social media today. The person was asking for support for her favorite cause, and it was a good cause.

The problem was the writing. It was so riddled with egregious errors that I could not focus on the message. All I could see were the multiple errors, and, fair or not, I developed a negative impression of the cause AND the writer.

If we, as professionals, want to get our messages across, the delivery has to contribute to the objective. In this case, the delivery actually muted the message.

Years ago, I was the assistant to the assistant of the General Manager of a major hotel. The manager was both intimidating and inspiring. His insistence on excellence in all aspects of a job helped me to grow and learn immeasurably.

My job was to open the mail, throw out obvious trash, and to neatly stack the rest. As he passed my desk, he would slow down just enough to be able to grab the pile of mail as he headed into his office. He always spent the first hour of each day answering his mail, so I had to finish my part of the process before he arrived.

One morning, I opened a letter that I was pretty sure would be tossed out. The envelop was a mess, and I suspected it was just trash.

When I opened it, I realized that it was a legitimate sales letter, and I was pretty horrified. The hotel had recently distributed a call for bids for the in-room refrigerator systems that would be placed in the 3,000+ (and growing) rooms. The contract would be for sales and service, and would result in millions of dollars of revenue for the supplier.

In other words, it was a big deal.

The letter I opened that morning was an introduction from a sales rep for an in-room refrigerator company. He was expressing interest in submitting a bid, and the letter was the first step.

The problem was that the letter, itself, was a mess. A huge mess.

Grammar errors. Usage errors. Spelling errors. And, to top it off, it looked like he had been eating while he prepared the letter and had wiped his hands on the paper. It was smudged and dirty.

I couldn’t throw away the letter, so I reluctantly put it in the pile, the boss took the letter, and then I just waited.

It wasn’t long. Within an hour, he came charging out of his office, put the letter back on my desk, gave me a cassette tape (I’m dating myself here, I know) on which he had recorded his response, and he instructed me to transcribe the response and put it in the mail that day.

I put the headphones on, and from the first word, it was amply clear that he was not impressed by the letter at all. The response was direct and raw. He specifically mentioned the errors, the presentation, and the overall lack of respect that the letter showed—for both our hotel and for his own company. He ended by assuring the salesman that the hotel would not accept any bids from his company.

I looked down and noticed that the original letter was covered in red ink. My boss had marked ALL the errors. I was directed to immediately send a copy of the marked-up letter along with his response to the salesperson.

And to his boss. He wanted the boss to know that his company would not being doing business with the hotel because of the deplorable communication.

Ouch.

They didn’t get a second chance because the first impression was so bad. I have wondered over the years what that salesperson ended up doing, because I feel pretty certain that his in-room refrigerator sales career was cut short once his boss received the material I sent.

All these years later, I still remember that experience whenever I open a sales letter. Or when I write a cover letter. Or when I meet someone for the first time.

First impressions count. Nowadays, in addition to making them in person or through letters, we make them via social media, or email, or even texts. Our communications need to reflect the image that we want the recipients to have after they receive them. If we hope to have any chance of meeting our objectives for initiating the communication in the first place, perhaps we are well advised to remember the story of the refrigerator salesman.

We're never really selling refrigerators, after all. We're selling ourselves, and we have to take full advantage of making that first impression count.