Purposive communication

The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 20, series of 2013, issued on June 28, 2013, which spells out the revised General Education Curriculum (GEC) for 2018, has two parts: the body and the appendices.

The body consists of Background and Rationale, Curriculum Overview (Article 1), Transitory Provisions (Art. 2), Repealing Clause (Art. 3), and Effectivity (Art. 4).

Article 1 consists of Goals and Context of General Education (Section 1), General Education Outcomes (Sec. 2), Revised Core Courses (Sec. 3), and General Education Electives (Sec. 4).

The appendices consist of Brief Explanation of GE Core Courses (Appendix A), Rationale for Change (App. B), College Readiness Standards Goals (App. C), Senior High School Curriculum and General Education (App. D), Differences between Present and the Revised General Education Curriculum (App. E), Implementation and Timetable (App. F), and Documentation of Public Consultations (App. G).

The CMO differentiates between the theoretical and the competencies-based or practical outcomes of the GEC. The theoretical outcome is “knowing the self, Filipino society, the world, and the environment, and how these intersect.” The competencies-based outcomes are categorized in Sec. 2 of Art. 1 into three: Intellectual Competencies, Personal and Civic Responsibilities, and Practical Skills.

I took the trouble of listing all the parts in order to emphasize that the CMO must be read as a whole and not in part. Sections of it should not be taken out of context. Looking at the entire document and not only at parts of it is the way to understand the course explanations in App. A.

Let us use as an example the core course entitled “Malayuning Komunikasyon / Purposive Communication.”

Sec. 3 of Art. 1 describes it as “Pagsulat, pagsasalita, at paglalahad para sa iba’t ibang madla at iba’t ibang layunin / Writing, speaking, and presenting to different audiences and for various purposes.” App. A adds: “The five skills of communication (listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing) are studied and simulated in advanced academic settings.”

Taken out of context, those sentences make it appear that this is just a continuation of the language courses (Filipino, English, Mother Tongue, Foreign Language) in the K to 12 curriculum. Seen within the context of the entire document, however, the course looks radically different.

Take the example given in App. A – “writing minutes of meetings.”

What would be the difference between minutes written by a Grade 12 student and that written by a GEC student?

A Grade 12 student should be able to write minutes according to the standard format (date, time, location of meeting; members and guests present; summaries of discussions for every agenda item; decisions made; actions taken; date, time, location, and suggested agenda for the next meeting; his/her name; notation or approval by the chair and/or members). Most minutes taken by non-college graduates adequately cover these items.

A student of “Purposive Communication,” however, will be thinking about much more than the format. The GEC student has to think about questions such as the following:

Who are going to read the minutes? How would an outside group (say, an accrediting association, an external auditor, media) interpret these minutes? How will these minutes contribute to the general advancement of the group (financial if a for-profit corporation, advocacy if a not-for-profit one)? How would a future corporate historian read these minutes? What are the ethical implications of the statements to be recorded? What might be read between the lines?

In short, what is the purpose of the minutes? Is it just to have a record of what happened or is it to further the cause of the group? In an age of desired transparency (the Facebook era), meetings have implications not only for the group that meets but for various other groups.

Like any other GEC course, “Purposive Communication” must be academic. The GEC teacher has to be familiar with the academic research on this subject.

The term “purposive communication” has a particular meaning in scholarly discourse. Hebb and Thompson’s classic “The Logical Analysis of Animal Communication” (1954), for example, says that “the essence of purposive communication is that the sender remains sensitive to the receiver’s responses, during sending, and by modification of his sending shows that his behavior is in fact guided by the intention (expectancy) of achieving a particular behavioral effect, in the receiver.” Purposive communication cannot be appreciated without behavioral science.

“The outstanding fact,” continues Hebb and Thompson, “is man’s capacity for a varied combination of symbolic acts.” The mention of symbolic acts brings to the fore cultural criticism, a specialization of literary critics and philosophers.

Nowadays, purposive communication is sometimes even identified with Development Communication, which is taught by Departments of Communication rather than Departments of English or Filipino. A 2011 article in the “Global Media Journal,” for instance, is entitled “Development Communication: A Purposive Communication with Social Conscience – an Indian Perspective.”

In college, the writing of minutes of meetings cannot be approached merely as a language skill, but must involve organizational communication (for the management implications), the social sciences (for the developmental implications), critical theory (for the non-verbal implications of the words), accountancy (for the significance of the financial data to be reported), philosophy (for the ethical implications), and other disciplines.

Read within the context of the entire CMO, “Purposive Communication” is a multidisciplinary course.