Who am I as a communicator?

This biggest surprise from this week's application activity was the big gap between my self score and those of my colleagues in Communication anxiety. I scored myself at a high/moderate level. Each of my colleagues scored me at a low/mild level. This tells me that I seem more confident than I feel when speaking.
A major insight gained from this week's discussion activity was that, despite my desire to be an open-minded person, I unconsciously make assumptions about others based on first impressions. I was dismayed that it was not very difficult for me to imagine characteristics of the woman in the photo. I feel that if I truly had an open mind these assumptions would have been more difficult to construct.
The positive part of this insight is that it has spurred my resolve to deconstruct my existing schemas.

Communication & Culture

I definitely communicate differently, depending upon the group that I am with. I have several different groups in which I have relations. At my job, the communication is less personal and more on a professional level. We discuss things that need to be done, how we can help each other, and ways to make things easier/more efficient. With my family most of my communication is on a very personal level, from things that we are dealing with in our lives to how we are raising our children.
I have a few groups of friends with whom I communicate on a regular basis. Some are closer than others. I tend to share very personal information with my closest friends and just socialize with others.
My differences in communication is not because of culture as much as it is because of relationships.

Communication Skills: Verbal and Nonverbal

In preparation for this assignment I watched an episode of Seinfeld. I have only watched this show a couple of times previously. What I learned the most from this assignment is that the sitcom actors work really hard to express what they are feeling nonverbally. I was able to successfully determine what each actor was feeling by their body language and facial expressions. During the course of the half hour show, the actors went through a myriad of emotions, from happiness to sadness to surprise to exasperation.
Completing this assignment helped me to see how you can understand how people are feeling by watching their nonverbal communication.

Effective Communication

When thinking about effective communicators two people from my education come to mind:
Flip Flippin and Stephen Covey.
Both of these men have written books and created tools for teaching individuals and groups how to be effective communicators.

Flip Flippin is responsible for Capturing Kids Hearts, a training for teachers and administrators. CKH is meant to be used by entire schools to create an environment of respect, trust, empathy and self-management. If you have not attended a CKH workshop, you have missed out on a great experience. For more information follow the link: http://www.flippengroup.com/education/ckh.html

Stephen Covey is a renowned author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In this book he outlines steps that are important for effective communication. Using the principles from this book, The FranklinCovey Group has developed a process to be integrated into the school's curriculum called The Leader in Me.
For more information follow the link:
http://www.franklincovey.com/tc/solutions/education-solutions/elementary-education-solutions--the-leader-in-me

For information about the book:
https://www.stephencovey.com/7habits/7habits.php

Using the techniques and strategies I learned through these resources, I have been able to create a positive environment for my students.

Hopes and Goals

One hope that I have for my own interactions with families is that I always come across as the understanding and respectful  teacher I want to be. I hope that all families in my facility, no matter race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, feel like they are part of a community of learning. I hope that our daycare becomes an extended family for all members.

One goal I would like to see in the early childhood field is increased education on diversity, equity and social justice. I firmly believe that the end of racism, biases and prejudice will come by changing the environment in which children are involved with in the early years. Educating early years teachers will help bring this change to fruition.

Thank you to all my colleagues in this course. I have learned from you new ideas and perspectives. Hope to see you in future classes!

The name of my family's country of origin is Uganda. I am the owner/director of a preschool. The five ways that I would prepare for their arrival is:
1. Learn the dominant language.
2. Learn religious traditions.
3. Learn non-religious traditions
4. Learn the culure of family.
5. Teach my staff all of these things.

Learning these things would help us make the child(ren) be comfortable in our environment. We would make it a priority to brings some things into the center that would remind the child(ren) of home. We would be open to incorportating some of the parental traditions in our environment.

Personal side of bias

Through these studies I have been amazed at how I could look at my life and realize areas of discrimination when I was categorized in a few of the areas. First, there has been a time in my life when my family struggled financially. My husband, at the time, was injured and lost his job. He was not able to return to work for months. I was pregnant with our third child at the time. When he lost his job, we also lost our insurance. Being a pregnant woman with only a high school diploma, I was only able to obtain part time work. I worked two jobs but still needed to obtain social services for health insurance. I felt extreme relief when I was approved for Medicaid. That feeling was replace with embarrassment when I handed over my approval card to the receptionist at my obstetrician and her demeanor toward me changed immediately. Her smile left her face and she very rudely said that their office usually did not accept Medicaid. She made a big production out of getting approval from the office manager. Since I was so far along in my pregnancy, they approved the insurance but I was treated coldly by that receptionist from that day forward. I remember feeling like less of a person even though the only thing that had changed about me was my financial status. While I was teaching in a predominantly Hispanic school I had to work harder to convince students that I was deserving of their respect and trust. In this situation being a White woman was a disadvantage. Most of my students had internalized that white people thought the were 'better' than other races. My consistent attitude of treating every student fairly led to them thinking that I was different from white people. Students did not change their thinking about about the race, they just thought of me as 'not really white.' The insight that this study has given me is that many of the ways that people treat each other come from internalized thinking. The only way to change the norms in social identities will be to teach acceptance of all people at a young age. This is going to take generations. On the bright side, we have come very far in the last few decades pertaining to prejudice and discrimination.