Sunday, July 22, 2012

Communication Evaluation



I had my eleven year old son and my husband evaluate me as a communicator.  I would have liked to have one colleague do this, but since it is summer, I was not able to get together with any of them.  Bummer!  I would also be interested in how my students would rate me!


I decided to choose my son because he’s old enough to understand the questions and I thought he would provide a different view on my communication.  He is almost twelve and going into the 6th grade this fall.  We have been experiencing A LOT of pre-teen problems at my house lately.  Consequently, yelling and grounding have been a common occurrence this summer.  I was so surprised when his results were spot on with mine.  My husband’s results were right there, too.  I guess my evaluation of my communication style is right, at least within my family. 


I really enjoyed reading about how self-esteem and self-concept influence the communication process.  I found it interesting that people with low self-esteem often need to show affection in public (O’Hair & Weimann, 2009).  PDA is a problem with some of my students.  I never thought about it being a result of low self-esteem.  I will now make an effort to address this problem more sensitively.  O’Hair and Weimann (2009) also address that people can influence others’ self-fulfilling prophecies either positively or negatively.  This is something educators do on a daily basis and we need to make sure that we are always a positive influence. 


References:

O’Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2009). Real communication: An introduction. New York:     Bedford/St. Martin’s.


2 comments:

Teresa G said...

I totally agree with you that educators need to be positive. Even when we have information to share that may cause some concern with students and their families, we need to be able to relay this information in a non-threathening way.

Amanda said...

Self esteem is something so many people have to deal with everyday. I know from experience that with low self esteem it can effect how a person perceives themselves in ever aspect of their lives public and personal. Having you son evaluate your communication was ingenious! who knows us better than our own children?