Reflection Paper - International Finance | SCM 305, Assignments of Communication and Development studies

Download Reflection Paper - International Finance | SCM 305 and more Assignments Communication and Development studies in PDF only on Docsity! Keri Hall Speech 305 Dr. Conville 1 December 2009 Reflection Paper I only had one major frustration with Aldersgate. I really became frustrated with the way Ms. Denise communicated with the kids. I did not appreciate the way she would boss them around. I found that the communication Ms. Denise used was quite different from what I would have chosen to use. For example, Ms Denise would yell at the kids to sit down. In her more playful moods, Ms Denise would jokingly threaten to sit on them, and thid kids would laugh, being able to tell she was joking. However, this is not like the yelling that I could tell through facial expressions and body movement even frustrated the kids. Ms Denise would yell something like, “Sit down! What did I tell you?” I always assumed the kids must know what she had told them, because I never heard her explaining any rules. It seemed to me that Ms Denise expected them to know her rules for them, even when they differed from the rules that they may be used to at school. Ms Denise never seemed to make the distinction in her mid, that the kids may have just confused the rules from hers and the ones at school., and that’s why they perhaps did not get up to throw away their trash. Perhaps the only reason I think of such distinctions is because I remember being confused about rules when I was young, “Is it okay to do this? I can’t remember. What should I do? I guess I’ll try it and maybe I’ll be right.” Sometimes I chose wrong, not because I was a bad student, but because I forgot or was confused about how this particular teacher liked to run things. However, Ms Denise does not make these allowances, unless she is in a good mood. Instead, she yells when they chose wrong. In my training in working with kids and my observations at Aldersgate, I find that this type of treatment frustrates the kids, can lead to more confusion about the proper way to behave, and cause them to lose self confidence. In short, I find that they consequences of them being constantly reprimanded to be counter-productive. Some insights about interpersonal communication that I have come to realize through Aldersgate are that you cannot not communicate and that communicators do not necessarily assign the same meaning. One day, Samuel was in time out. I was not allowed to talk or play with him, but he longed for my attention, even calling my name. I did not want to give him the message that he was not worth my time because I felt that behavior would lead to his own decreased self confidence. I had to watch the communication I was giving him by not giving him any attention. Instead of just ignoring him, I would look up at him, shush him, and smile warmly in an attempt to help him understand that I still care for him, but that he should be quiet. Since I knew I would be communicating whether I was interacting with him or not, I chose give positive messages through my communication choices. Also learned, is that communicators do not assign the same meaning to what is communicated. When I tell an Aldersgate student to do something, the child understands the communication to be of the same value as if coming from the teacher. However, I understand my own communication towards them differently. When I tell a child to do something, I understand that communication in terms of an assistant instructing that doesn’t really know if what I say is okay with the teacher or not. The kids take the word as absolute; I take the word as unsure. It is the same message, but different understandings of it. The major difficulty of communication between Ms Denise and I is that I take most of my cues and understandings of her rules by reading nonverbal messages and cues. This is a problem because I never am perfectly sure what she means when she does some things, unless