View this
YouTube video on cultural communication before answering the following
questions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gRXMzR_8BY
Consider
the communication styles of various cultures and the significance of these
differences in your future classrooms. Nonverbal communication is a
message, other than words, that people exchange. Children do not always find as much meaning
from nonverbal communication as adults. Based
on this video and Koppelman's concepts of communication, what should we do to
make sure our point and message are not confusing and our students understand
the message we want to get across?
My Response for This Prompt
For me, our research video this week was extremely enlightening
when paired with our textbook topic for the week. My initial reaction to the video was that it
is a fair depiction of stereotypes of life in the United States; that there is
within it a good bit of commonly held assumptions about what Americans are and
the type of people we want to be. I
thought it interesting that the video's creator did not give specifics of those
"some other countries" he referenced.
This lent a feeling of "an introduction to American culture"
to the piece, something that might be similarly produced by an American-born
and raised student doing a school project on what life in Dubai, India might be
like as experienced by the natural-born citizens of Dubai.
Where the piece broke down, for me, was in its failure to
communicate that the stereotypes are not an accurate reflection of life
for all Americans. The reference to "Chicago"
and "DeKalb" helped to place where these stereotypes are purported as
"American normal." The video's creator did not make clear the
difference of "rock logic" and "water logic," meetings
across the full breadth of corporate America often start late and rarely end on
time with all action items firmed, and people in America act far more
often on what they "feel" than on what "logic" might
dictate. In addition, it is generally accepted among polite society in
the southeast that you do not talk about (or make) private plans in public as
it is unforgivably rude to those not on your guest list. And, if you
invite a special friend to a dinner or movie, the inviter is expected to pay
for the invitee unless an allusion of some sort or another is made to
"dutch treats" as part of the invitation.
Two of the comments on the page spoke to me, in particular. I offer them here, pasted "as is":
I have
never seen such a miss intrerepted information as this.
Whether or
not there are any problems with this presentation depends on the intended
audience, and the intended
purpose of the presentation. It is certainly US centric - for example, using
'other cultures' all the way
through - but if it is for a US audience, that is ok. Main issue is that it
presents an idealised view of US.
Taking the UK media as an example - our coverage of China lacks accuracy, but
we like to believe our media are
fair and free. This apparent hypocrisy by us annoys others.
The second commenter is correct; it all comes down to
context. We do not know the context in
which the video's creator originally positioned this piece, so we cannot
accurately speak to how well he communicated the concepts he hoped to deliver
to his audience. For all we know, the
point of this video was to communicate how stereotypes never tell the whole
story. If that was his goal, he truly
did a smashing job of it. If that was
not his goal, then he has offered us a prime example of why stereotypes make
such a poor medium for communicating the full truth about life within a given
culture.
Our textbook offers five other examples of communication
misconceptions. I agree with all but the
fourth, "Communications can break
down," as I think Stone, Singletary, and Richmond (or our textbook
author; it is hard to tell which is responsible for the wording in this
section) chose to pick semantic nits instead of addressing the actual issue. The textbook offers this, "if verbal exchange ceases, communication in
some other form - whether words or actions - will replace it"
(Koppelman/Goodhart). As the very
concept of communication is, at its heart, more than the simple tossing off
words at a wall to see what sticks - as if the words were little more than
verbal pasta and we wanted to know if they were done. If communication is not effective then it
has, indeed, broken down; it does not matter that some other communication
style might take the place of the first style; the first did not see productive
resolution, so it did, in actuality, break down.
So many of my peers have already stated it on our classroom forum
this week, but I will state it, too. As
educators, it is our responsibility to approach our communications
carefully. We must pay attention to the
visual, auditory, linguistic, and cultural cues that our students or colleagues
give to us. We must strive to deliver
our message in a way that is elegant in its simplicity, so that our intent
remains clear from the first. We must be
vigilant for instances where our message comes through inefficiently; we must
never fault the listener for this failure, but work with them to rectify the
misunderstanding and move forward together, confident of successful future
interactions.
REFERENCES
Koppelman, K.L. & Goodhart, R. L. (2011). Chapter 3: Communication, conflict, and
conflict resolution. In M. Mattson
(Ed.), EDUC-2120: Education GA Perimeter College
North (pp 47-69). Boston, MA:
Pearson Custom Education.
Mattson, M. (2014). Chapter
3 lecture notes: Communication, Conflict, and Conflict Resolution [PowerPoint
slides]. GPC iCollege, EDUC-2120-001. Retrieved 27-Jan-2014 from https://gpc.view.usg.edu/d2l/home/485701
Ty.,
R. Comparing
Different Cultures: Intercultural Communications. Théâtre Palme d'Or. Retrieved 05-Feb-2014 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gRXMzR_8BY
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