LY #101 The Lost Last Time for Telephone

I didn't plan to write about Community on Tuesday.  I'd planned to write about the last time I was able to experience one of my favorite in-class activities -- Public Telephone.  But, sadly, classes were cancelled out of concern for student safety.  I will never lead this activity again.  And the countdown continues.

Richard Estes, Telephone Booths (1977) at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Now, I was somewhat annoyed by this because the danger to students was weather related and was over long before my class started in early evening.  The decision was made around 6 a.m. to cancel classes for the entire day, with the emergency call going out at 6:15.  There was black ice covering the ground throughout the region.  Most of it was gone by noon.  When it was still gone through the entire afternoon, evening, and night, I felt annoyed that I'd lost a whole week of class and especially because I'd lost my last chance to enjoy this activity.

Because of my annoyance I tried to track down the reason the school was closed the entire day rather than just during the morning.  After a few dead ends I received help from Cady-Mae, a lovely and intelligent young woman who works in the public safety office.  With her help I found out that a committee of ten makes the school closure decision after looking at a handful of extremely legitimate sources, including local weather sources, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Weather Channel, and a few other sites.  And, as we all know, the best meteorologists in the world can be wrong about the weather.  I certainly felt better about losing the day once Cady-Mae and a colleague of hers were willing to tell me what upper-level administrators were not -- just where their weather information came from.

So, back to this favorite activity.  It's really pretty simple but it has a powerful impact.  It's all about listening. 

1. I ask for six volunteers.  I take these folks outside of class and tell them to chat with each other and figure out who is the best listener.
2. I go back into the classroom and explain the activity to the other students.  They are to observe and take notes.  I hand out "the story" to the students in the classroom.  (The story I've used most recently is listed below.)
3. After setting up two chairs or desks face to face either in the front of the classroom or in the center (I prefer in the center of a circle of desks), I invite in the volunteer identified "best listener."  The other volunteers wait outside.
4. I read the story aloud to the first volunteer, emphasizing that he or she will need to tell the story to the next person.
5. Then, once I am done, that volunteer calls in the next one, who calls in the next, who calls in the next.

You see why I call it "Public Telephone."  Like the game "Telephone," the story changes from person to person.  Usually it shrinks.  And it's public because there's an audience for the shrinkage.  The changes in the story usually result in laughter from the audience which, of course, increases the volunteers problems with remembering and repeating the story.

Sometimes students have used "good" listening skills during the game.  I have not prohibited them from taking notes or asking questions, though very rarely do they ask if they can use those effective listening skills.  And just as rarely, even though they've allegedly read the chapter on listening, have they used paraphrasing. 

While effective listening is made visible by its usual absence, ineffective listening habits and environmental factors that make listening difficult are also easy to observe.  The audience is a huge distraction to the volunteers, as are their own inner monologues about performance and expectations of perfection.  The message I've crafted is purposefully scattered and hysterical, making it difficult to remember.  I always make sure to encourage the performers to talk about their experience and let them know that the ineffective listening was not just "their fault" but built into the situation.

When I first adapted this activity from a teacher's handbook back in the early 90s, I used the story in the handbook about a taxi driver.  But it just never fit my students.  After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I started using a "crisis" story; one that reflected the disastrous communication errors made by some of the helping organizations during that terrible event.  This story also allowed me to talk not only about listening skills but also about how important it is to create clear messages in an emergency situation. 

If you know anyone teaching interpersonal communication you are welcome to share this with them.  I take no ownership.

THE PUBLIC TELEPHONE CRISIS STORY

Imagine you are working in a crisis situation.  Use all the listening skills you can think of because you’re going to have to pass along this story to the next person.

Here’s what you need to tell the next person.  We need to get to work.  There’s a big fire rolling over Awbrey Butte.  Some jerk tossed a cigarette or something.  Who knows.  Anyway,  Bob Henderson is supposed to lead four vans to the dorm at the top of the hill.  The other three drivers are Kowalski, Smith and Wesson.  The wind has kicked the fire over a couple of roads so we want the students evacuated to the north if there’s still time.  We’re having problems with communications now.  Cell phones aren’t working and we don’t know which roads are open.  What you’re supposed to do is hurry people into the vans and keep them from carrying too much of their junk out of the dorm.  Some of them will want to take a lot of stuff.  The rule is, one backpack or one laptop bag.  That’s all they can carry.  Just one bag.  And no weapons.  So help the four drivers get students into the vans and then run through the dorms and look into every room, make sure no one’s passed out or sleeping, ok?  You got it?  If so, you can pass on this story to the next person.