Communication Perceptions

            This week we had a fun and enlightening assignment, which was to take a test on how we perceived ourselves as listeners and communicators. Even more interesting was that we had to have two other people that know us, take the same test answering as how they perceive us. What I found surprising was that the scores were very similar. I had expected that maybe the others would score me tougher than I had scored myself. As it turns out our scores, as I mentioned were very similar with their scores seeing me as a better communicator and listener than I had rated myself.

            After this weeks reading I have come to realize (thankfully) that I very rarely engage in self-denigration. Most of the time I would have to say that my assessment of myself is more around the level of self-adequacy. I have made a conscious decision to be gentler and kinder to myself. This assignment has given me some important feedback. I chose my husband and a peer from work that has attended many meetings with me. The feedback I received tells me that even though I may feel a little nervous when I speak at meetings or trainings (I just taught a class last night on suicide prevention with a group of 24 in the class) that I do not appear nervous. That in itself has boosted my self confidence. I have not read the evaluations yet (fear of negative comments) but I would like to think that I will be able to read them and accept the criticism. I actually now believe that some of the evaluations may even be positive. The other way this weeks lesson has helped me is of course the reminder that as an EC professional my behavior and how I see myself can affect the children. If I appear hesitant or unsure of myself how is that going to inspire the children to speak their voices?

Jenn Pore`

Different ways of communicating?

           The question of the week is: Do I find myself communicating differently with different people and groups? I most certainly do. The first three categories of people that I thought of are family, peers, and clients. After putting some thought to the question I realize that I even communicate differently with the same people based on the circumstance. The first example that comes to mind is my grandchildren. I adore the ground they walk on and I believe that my manner, voice, body language, actions, and the fact that I tell them how much they mean to me ensures that they are aware. There are times when I am able to be with them in person, which is awesome! There are many times that I cannot see them in person so we Skype, text, send photos, face book, and talk on the phone. With each one of these methods there are inherent problems and advantages. To be even more specific as far as strategies I know that I choose subjects carefully with particular members of my family. Such as with my dad. I stick with comfortable natural topics that are not going to get him started down an ugly conversation. I love to listen intently to make sure I hear and understand that my grand’s want to tell me about their lives.

            With peers the subject and setting are pretty much set for us. Occasionally we have a personal conversation but for the most part the topics surround the weekly topic for class or a particular client. The communication (I hope) is always respectful and generally is focused on fact-finding, problem solving or validation of our understanding of a concept or situation.

            When communicating with clients these too can look very different. I have many different strategies or approaches that I use with children, which rely on the feedback that I receive from the child. Depending on the situation and how the child responds to me, determines whether I speak, sit and listen, put on music, introduce my dog or offer a means of drawing for example. In the excerpt from her book (Gonzalez-Mena, 2010) lists some things that teachers can do and one of them is “Recognize your own patterns of nonverbal behavior. Most of us are unconscious of these until we meet someone who doesn’t fir our patterns. Consider that even though your own way may feel right, normal. Or good doesn’t mean that they are in any way superior to another person’s nonverbal behavior patterns.” For me this equates into the reminder that it isn’t just about me miss-reading someone else’s non-verbal cues but that I need to be aware that I may be giving out non-verbal cues that are being miss-read.

Jenn Pore`

Gonzalez-Mena, J. (2010). 50 strategies for communicating and working with diverse

     Families. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

            

Body Language is only part of a Conversation

            I found this weeks assignment to be a lot of fun and very enlightening. I must cconfess that I cheated just a tiny bit. I asked around for some suggestions of half hour sitcoms that were not aggressive, rude or violent. I was very little television and I specifically do not watch the news. I did not want to be caught off guard by watching something that was violent or negative. So, having said that I watched an old episode of Frasier. There appeared to be three main male roles and two women who were involved more than other characters. One man clearly appeared to have a job at a radio station with one of the women. The rest of the show had the characters in a home and at a coffee shop. Maybe the other women is one of the two middle age men’s wife, because she is always at the house with the older man (dad, uncle?). There is a lot of body language happening in this show, along with lots of facial expressions. I was told it was a comedy but to watch it without words it appeared to me that these people were angry a lot.

     So, after watching again I realized that there is a lot of sarcasm in this show. I was right the one guy (Frasier) was a radio host and one of the women (Roz) was his producer. The older man in the house was his dad and the second women was a lice in physical therapist/house keeper. The second middle age man was Frasier’s brother. The show really was cute and I have watched other old episodes and have really enjoyed it. Turns out all of the arm flailing and expressions were to add to the humor of the show. I miss guessed on the physical therapist/house keeper completely. Which makes me feel better because I felt sad that she seemed to always seem to be on the outskirts of what was going on. It really brought attention to the fact that just paying attention is not enough. If we don’t really listen and hear what is being said we stand to really misinterpret and misunderstand what the other person is attempting to tell us. 

Communication Styles

     Hello to my new and long standing classmates. The very first person that came to mind as someone that demonstrates competent communication is my husband. He is a true wordsmith. He has the ability to bring out any emotion from his readers that he wants to. As much as I appreciate his ability to make anything sound professional I can not say that I have the desire to be like him. Yes, he can write a book and publish wonderful meaningful poems. However, he has the need to correct others when they speak, he appears to have the need to hear speech as correct as he writes. I get that when I am writing a paper or report for example that it needs to be professional. For my own comfort I prefer to have some down, relaxed time and that includes not being perfect and on task. I feel it just goes to show that there are probably as many kinds of communication as there are people.

Jenn Pore`

Hope-Goals & Thanks

            This week we are asked to give one hope that we have for ourselves in relation to working with children and their families that come from diverse backgrounds. My hope and expectation is that I will always be mindful of their needs and respectful of whom they are. As many classmates mentioned in discussion board this week: diversity is on ongoing part of life. It will not do to come up with a plan and not altar from it. I need to embrace each child and family individually.

            The one goal I would set is I feel a very realistic one and that is: That everyone working in the Early Childhood field continue to educate parents and communities along with supporting other EC professionals and themselves with self care and continued education. If we all do this the word will spread I have no doubt.

            Well it is the end of yet another class here at Walden. I would sincerely like to thank all of my peers and professor for such an interesting and involved adventure. My interactions with everyone have always been respectful, supportive and sometimes quite comical! I wish health and safety to all.

Jenn Pore`

Welcoming Families from Around the World

     Our scenario this week is to choose a country that we know little to nothing about and come up with a plan on how to make a child (and the family) coming from that country feel welcomed into my agency. I have chosen Sweden as the country that my new family hails from.

1. The first thing that I would do is make certain that I have as much information as possible about the family: names, parents, where their from specifically, etcetera.
2. Next I would look up Sweden on line a find their township specifically if I had it. I will want to know things like health care, popular music bands, how their schools are structured etcetera.
3. If we have a photo of the child I would post it in the classroom with welcome in both English and Swedish written on it.
4. I would find how to spell and pronounce some key words and phrases in Swedish. I would add the Swedish word to everything that was already labeled for a print rich room.
5. Hopefully the family would have left e-mail. That would give the opportunity to make contact ahead of time and try to find some information out about the child, such as favorite color, food, and also any fears that we would need to know about.

My intention of course would be to try and make sure that the child and family felt welcome and that our classroom would be comfortable and inviting. If the family spoke no English at all I would see that could be done about having an interpreter. Caution would have to be taken to not use stereotypical foods, toys, and etcetera but to be sure that anything set up to welcome the child was specific to him or her and their family. I would do my best to have at least a few words learned in the child’s native language and make certain that when the family arrives that I make certain that I pronouncing their names correctly. I also think it would be fun to involve the whole class by teaching the children words like: hello, welcome, bathroom, eat, happy and sad.

Jenn Pore`

Bias,Prejudice, and Oppression Oh My!

              Many of my classmates have heard me talk about a proposal that I have been working really hard at. The proposal is to add two doublewide manufactured homes to our work property. Our building sits on a big corner lot that would not only accommodate both additions but a large fenced play yard for the children. My plan is to have one wing house our A&D clients and services and the second would be a children’s wing. Sounds great doesn’t it? My proposal is quarter the cost of a quote the Commissioners received 4 years ago to build a new building and yet they still won’t approve my proposal. My Director is 100% behind me, as well as every county supervisor and director of every agency that we work with to include our advisory board. The bias, prejudice and oppression are coming from our three commissioners that of course are who makes the decision.  They cannot conceive that a woman could have come up with such a flawless plan. Every concern and question that they can think of to throw at me, I have been able to answer and show how it was already addressed in the proposal. Their “good old boy” prejudice against women is maddening! I am so angry with these ridiculous men that I can hardly see straight. We are so cramped for space in our current building that we can’t provide all the services that we need to. So my boss and I discussed it and of course the project is far more important than my ego so he has been having meetings with each of the commissioners, getting their questions and concerns and then coming back and working with me for his answers. He has managed to sway two of the three commissioners so far with my information and plans. I was the one that had to change my tactics for this project to have a chance and I think it is a darn shame.

Jenn Pore`