Abstract
Throughout this decade voices from the public sector as well as from within the educational sphere have focused on academic and moral deficits in our nation's schools. In our discipline, controversy has centered on communication competencies for teachers and for students, on the need to develop critical thinking skills and on the search for moral values in the classroom. Certainly, without a citizenry capable of thinking and communicating in a rational, ethical manner, the fundamental fabric of democracy becomes unraveled. What we face, then, is a crisis that threatens our democratic as well as our educational ideals. Pedagogical wrangling over research and methodology aside, the imperative role of communication educators in the future is clear: we must teach large numbers of our students to think clearly, to make sound moral judgments based on that thinking and to communicate those moral beliefs through word and action to create a better world. What is lacking in the academic and legislative skirmishing over how to define and to achieve this goal is a vision, a dream to inspire the efforts and to unify the various strands of endeavor. Lewis Mumford's brilliant body of work can provide a philosophical foundation for communication education in the twenty-first century.
Journal Title
Iowa Journal of Speech Communication
Volume
21
Issue
2
First Page
55
Last Page
62
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Darby, Virginia G.
(1989)
"A Visionary Approach to Communication Education,"
Iowa Journal of Communication: Vol. 21:
No.
2, Article 5.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ijc/vol21/iss2/5
Copyright
©1989 Iowa Communication Association
