Communication Growth

Cultural diversity exists within my school, in my neighborhood, within my workplace and even within my family. Culture is made up of different cultures which include race, religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation, varying abilities and even individual family cultures.

I definitely communicate differently with people from different groups and cultures. For example, when working with my autistic students, part of our life skills curriculum goals is to carry on a conversation using various strategies. We are working on using eye contact, nodding and gesturing to show presence within a conversation, having a “two-way conversation” involving questioning about one’s interests and what is being said and not repeating the same ideas over and over again. When talking with these students I model this behavior and give elaborate praise when these strategies are put to use. During everyday conversations with friends and family I am more natural and am not taking on the role of a teacher. When working with young children I speak to their level and tend to gesture a lot especially when teaching French to learners as a second language. With that said, being bilingual, I speak French in my work place as I teach in a French community and Francophone school but have friends and family who only speak English. While speaking with close friends who are bilingual, I tend to switch back and forth between both languages, however, in my role as a teacher I only speak French to my Principal and with my students because it is a cultural expectation. When participating in professional development opportunities and collaborating with other professionals, I use language that is appropriate for the content and context while in other situations I am not concerned with formality. I love talking to my boyfriend and we share a lot about our individual professional lives but because he is not in the same field I feel as though he does not understand in the way that my friends who are teachers do. I tend to talk differently and in more detail with them than I would with him.

This week we learned about cultural myopia and the platinum rule. Cultural myopia is when "Individuals who fail to consider other cultural perspectives are said to suffer from cultural myopia, a form of nearsightedness grounded in the belief that one's own culture is appropriate and relevant in all situations and to all people" (O'Hair & Wiemann, p. 45, 2012). The platinum rule asks us to treat people the way that they wish to be treated in comparison to the golden rule in which we are asked to treat those the way that we want to be treated. I can definitely use this information in order to communicate more effectively with the people and groups discussed above. While teaching French as a second language it is important to remember that the language is new to the students. I need to slow down while speaking. In this week’s part one of our discussion forum I shared an experience I had with a family from Afghanistan. As part of the family’s culture I was only supposed to address the father during meetings, conferences and interviews. I explained that I found these wishes degrading, sexist, discriminatory and quite frankly infuriating. Although I adhered to the family’s wishes at once, I struggled with these guidelines internally. It took a lot of reflection and time for me to finally say and realize that I was using my own personal cultural beliefs as a reference for what was right to judge someone else’s culture as wrong. This is both an example of cultural myopia and the platinum rule.

References:

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication: An introduction. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.