Communication and Culture

"Misunderstanding and miscommunication occur between people from different cultures because of different coding rules and cultural norms, which play a major role in shaping patterns of interaction. The greater the difference between the cultures, the more likely it is that they will use different verbal and nonverbal codes" (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2011).

When communicating with the different groups of people that I work with, I tend to change my language based on who I am speaking with. I always have the same outcome in mind when I am discussing something, but my approach is different based on each individual's personality. I know who I can joke with, who I have to be more matter of fact with, and who needs to hear the reason for my interaction. 

I work with all women, except for one male assistant teacher and our male owner. I can approach the male assistant teacher differently than I would approach our male owner. Although I know that I can be a sarcastic and jovial person, I tend to tone it back with our owner because he is my boss, technically, and is more into business than joking. He can have fun, but it is not a common occurrence. I have a great relationship with the female teachers and I like to think that I have figured out each of their personalities so I know how to approach each of them. It is almost like learning the personalities of each child in your class at the beginning of the school year. There is a learning curve, but once you know how each child learns, you can adapt your teaching style for them to learn best. Same goes with staff members. 

I try to use comic relief when I converse with most people I meet. I find that if I can make someone smile, I can connect with them better. I also try to share similarities with them and relate a situation that I was in with something they are going through. When I can relate to them, we can communicate better and have a better connection. 

Finally, I like to connect with people by asking questions and listening to what the person is actually saying. I try not to read too far into their responses and take them for the words they are providing. This of course goes hand in hand with making a similar connection and relating together. 

Ultimately, I like to listen and actually hear what the other person is saying. When you look too far into it, you end up misinterpreting the end result.

Resource

Beebe, S., Beebe, S., & Redmond, M. (2011). Interpersonal Communication and Diversity: Adapting to Others. In Interpersonal communication: relating to others (pp. 85–114). essay, Pearson. 

Communication Skills: Language, Nonverbal, Listening

This week, I chose to watch an episode of the show "Dynasty." It is not something that I usually would watch or have an interest in. I assumed since it is a soap opera, it would be something that I would be able to see a good amount of interaction with. 

When the show starts, there are two people texting back and forth. It seems that there are many characters. Some look like they are not "good people."  While watching the interaction between mos of the characters, there seems to be a lot of sexual innuendos occurring between them. There is a driver that looks to be flirting with a younger blonde woman. There is an older man that looks to be the "boss" in some company. A dark-haired woman dressed in expensive clothes shows up at his office and they begin to kiss on his desk. The younger blonde woman enters the room with a younger man and they all look surprised to see each other. 

The story continues with interactions happening and eventually cuts to the dark-haired woman in a dark alley, meeting another man in a car. He looks concerned and surprised to see her. They have an in-depth conversation and the woman leaves. The show cuts to the older man and the dark-haired woman in bed together. She looks to be in distress and gets out of bed. The older man looks at his phone after she leaves the room and he looks concerned. He signs heavily and rolls over in bed. This body language tells me that something has been sent to him that has immediately caused him stress. 

The show continues and the dark-haired woman meets the younger man at her home(?) and the older man introduces them. They appear to be faking that they have not met before. The younger blonde woman notices this interaction and her eyebrows raise. 

They all move to dinner and the blonde-haired woman looks to go on a rant and the dark-haired woman and older man do not look happy with what is being said. It looks to be an intense conversation.

It's extremely interesting to watch the body language and facial expressions that are taking place between all the characters. I was expecting soap opera drama, but I hadn't realized how dramatic some of these shows really are.

My ultimate prediction about each character is that the older man is some type of boss of a company. The dark-haired woman is his wife, or girlfriend, or mistress. The blonde woman is somehow related to the older man, and the younger man is an acquaintance that is somehow roped into the family.

OKAY- having watched the episode now, the younger blonde woman (Fallon) is the older man's (Blake) daughter.and she is hoping for a promotion to run the family business. The dark haired woman is Crystal and she is the older man's fiancee. The driver that picked Fallon up from the airport seems to be a boyfriend of some type to Fallon.

The man in the dark alley is Matthew, Crystal's ex-boyfriend. Now I understand why she was so careful about meeting him: she already knew him. When Blake checks his phone, he is actually looking for an itinerary for the engagement photos that have to be taken. In actuality, Fallon has sent him pictures of Crystal and Matthew together during their meeting. 

Based upon what I have watched, I believe that some of my predictions were correct because of their communication styles. Others were not correct. If I had been watching a different show that I usually watch, I am sure that I would have been able to figure out what was happening. I have watched all 17 seasons of Grey's Anatomy and although the storyline changes, I still would have been able to follow the episode without volume. 

This was a fun experiment but I will stick to the sound on. And I might just continue watching Dynasty now.

Communication Skills in Action

This week, I would like to write about my father. He is an expert mechanic and chassis builder. He is very mechanically minded and is very thorough when discussing information about cars, plumbing, electrical, carpentry, and anything science-related. My father has an associate's degree in business, as he has his own business now for almost 30 years. He lights up when he talks about something that he is passionate about, and not always things that he is passionate about. He is animated and will over-explain things to help make sure that you understand what he is trying to describe/explain. As an Italian man, he is extremely animated with his gestures and drawings and intonation of his voice. It's actually quite comical sometimes. I know that no matter what I need, I can ask him for his help and his explanation will help me learn.

I feel that as his daughter, I do tend to explain things with my hands and pictures just like him. I also like to help whoever I am talking to to understand my explanation so I tend to overexplain as well. Since he is so passionate about everything he talks about, it would be an honor to model his communicative skills after him. 

This is my father. My maiden name is Luciano, so my father has always been called Lucky as his nickname. 

This is my father in his racecar that he built. As a chassis builder, he builds the entire inside frame and chassis of the car. 

Since we drag race as a hobby, my father is always helping other teams with their program. He loves to work! In this photo, he is helping a car back up down the track so they are lined up straight.

A Final Word on Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

First, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my classmates for their support throughout the past 8 weeks. You have truly helped open my eyes to seeing this differently. I will admit that I did struggle at some points to see different perspectives and I realize that I will never understand how your lives are different from mine, but I appreciate your insights and thoughts. You are a great crew and I am glad that we can go through this journey together!

One hope that I have moving forward in my career with regard to working with diverse children and families is that I can remain open minded. I have been the new parent in a classroom and I have also been the seasoned parent in a classroom. I realize that both of these "roles" take an enormous amount of time to get used to change. I have also been the new teacher in a school and I am currently the seasoned educator in the school. I believe that I am extremely open to welcoming new families, but I am not always open to change. Therefore, my hope for myself is that I continue to stay on the path I have set for myself and continue to be open to accepting new children families and that I can learn something new about the new cultures that I may encounter. By learning something new, I can tuck it into my back pocket for use in the future. We all have those pieces of information that we store in our brains for just the exact moment it is needed.

A goal that I have for the early education field in regards to diversity is similar to my personal goal. Not all teachers think like those of us in this class, and I would like to think that as teachers we can be accepting of everyone in our classroom: Seasoned teachers are more accepting of change and open minded to new ideas and that new teachers are able to bring something new that they have learned to the school to teach everyone.  I realize that this could be useful for any topic, but especially with the state of our nation right now, I feel that it is extremely important. If we all had the same mentality that we preach in my school that everyone is everyone's friend, and that we can all play together no matter what color your skin or hair color is, the world would be a better place. I think my final word on this topic is that we all need to follow the golden rule and remember to treat people the way that we would want to be treated. 

Welcoming Families From Around the World

My new family is from Vietnam.

There are many ways that I can prepare to welcome this new family to my classroom. I will first begin by familiarizing myself with the cultures in Vietnam. I will need to learn about the family culture of Vietnamese families. I have learned already that in Vietnam, extended family is very important. As the new family will be moving here, they will most likely have a multigenerational structure in their home. (Thuong, 2019)

"“Khiêm tốn” (humbling and self-restraint) is the most important value in Vietnamese society. If a child has ideological or moral opinions that differ from those of their superiors, he will mostly likely to keep them to himself" (Thuong, 2019).

Knowing this fact about Vietnamese culture will help me to understand how the child will interact with myself and the other children. This is something that they have been taught throughout their life so knowing this fact will help me to understand his mentality of respect for his elders.

Thirdly, I will want to learn a few Vietnamese phrases that I can use to make the family and the child feel comfortable upon entering my classroom. By putting this effort into learning a little bit about their language, I am showing that I care about them. I will also learn how men and women tend to greet differently. Men will shake hands upon meeting and leaving and bow their heads, women will bow their heads and not shake hands. I will also learn the correct way to say 'hello' in Vietnamese. Xin chao. (2016)

I would also like to understand how gender roles work in the Vietnamese culture compared to the United States. "Even though the family is viewed as a unit, the father or an older male has the ultimate responsibility and acts as an authority leader while delegating tasks and involving others in the decision making. (See Gender Roles section). From a very young age the father and other family members educate the children on “filial piety,” a key part of Vietnamese culture which requires that children give parents and elders respect, love, and care" (LaBorde, 1996).

Finally, I need to know about the value of education in Vietnam. Expectations will be higher than that of Western culture. "Vietnamese place a higher value on education rather than on material success. That the reason why parents encourage their children to study and excel in their education. Vietnamese parents have a high regard for it which was considered a way for family advancement" (Tran, 2020).

My hope would be that this family would see that I put effort into learning about their culture and trying to make them feel as comfortable as possible in this new environment. Although I may not fully understand all of their cultures, I can try to make them feel as comfortable as possible while in my classroom. 

References

LaBorde, P. (1996). Vietnamese. Ethnomed. https://ethnomed.org/culture/vietnamese/.

Thuong, Y. (2019, May 21). Three Main Aspects of Family in Vietnamese Culture. Medium. https://medium.com/travel-is-to-think-in-terms-of-experiences-rather/three-main-aspects-of-family-in-vietnamese-culture-86bcb6010bb4.

Tran, R. (2020, February 18). Vietnamese Traditional Family Values! Vietnam Discovery Travel. https://vietnamdiscovery.com/culture-arts/vietnamese-traditional-family-values/#:~:text=Obedience%20and%20respect%20were%20the,gift%20of%20birth%20and%20upbringing.

Vietnam - Cultural Etiquette - e Diplomat. (2016). http://www.ediplomat.com/np/cultural_etiquette/ce_vn.htm.

 

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

My nephew had an incident with the police and his two friends. They were caught smoking pot in a park. The two boys were Mexican and black and my nephew is white. The two boys were fined for the marijuana offense and my nephew was not. He was given a warning and told to make better choices. Obviously, I am glad that B didn’t have any charges pressed against him, but it does make me wonder what the police officers thought when writing those tickets for the boys. What did their parents say when they heard that this had happened and B did not get a fine? I was ultimately upset with my nephew and made it known how disappointed I was with him, but we had a long discussion about what had happened and why. He is 16 and is old enough to understand what had happened with his friends and why they were fined and he wasn’t.

This incident diminished equity because it wasn’t not fair that everyone did not receive the same punishment. They all deserved to be fined and take the punishment.

I felt, and still feel bad for those boys and their parents. What an awful feeling for everyone, including my nephew.

For me, I would say that my sister and my nephew need to have a serious conversation about the choices he makes and puts himself in with his friends so this doesn’t happen again in the future. As a white “man,” he does have privilege and needs to remember that in order to keep his friends safe.

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

 This week, while scrolling on TikTok, (yes, I admit that I have lost hours on this app), I stumbled upon an extremely funny video about a mother and why she is constantly checking on her teenage children. She prefaced her response to the child about constantly being in his business by stating, "As a black mom, these are the reasons that I am always in your business." For me, it offended me a little. All mothers are constantly checking on their children when it is too quiet. When my daughter was four years old, she was extremely quiet in her bedroom and when I went in to check on her, she was coloring on all her Barbie dolls with a black sharpie. "I'm giving them make-up just like you wear, Mommy." We had to throw all those Barbies out. Now, when she is too quiet, I still check on her and she's never doing anything wrong. She's usually just watching TV, but I still feel the need to peak in.

I proceeded to leave a comment on this woman's video because she was hysterical. Her points were valid. She was right in saying that moms are always worried about their children, no matter their age. However, when she referred to herself as a black mom, it did bother me. I realize this is a silly thing to get offended about, but there was no reason to state that part. We can see that she was black. What she forgot is that not all moms are black, and therefore her statement was unnecessary.

This week, we have learned a lot about prejudice and racism. It has upped my awareness of the comments that are being spoken around me. I am not out and about very much because of the pandemic, so the conversations I hear are always at work and since I work with a bunch of teachers, our conversations are pretty tame. There is occasionally a comment made, but it is followed up with a conversation and then squashed. What I also really like about the people I work with is that we can say things to each other and there is no offense taken. We banter back and forth and no one gets upset. If something is said, it is always in fun and there is no truth behind the statement. We all laugh at the end.