What is Communication?

For your blog this week, think of someone (e.g., family member, celebrity, politician, friend, or professor) who demonstrates competent communication within a particular context. What behaviors does this person exhibit that make him or her effective? Would you want to model some of your own communication behaviors after this person? Why or why not?

This week’s readings and tasks have really made me think and reflect about what effective communication looks like. I am sure that we have all experienced a breakdown in communication at one point or another in our lives. You feel like you are being clear and yet someone is misinterpreting what you are saying. Sometimes we communicate and we ourselves are unsure of our goals and reasons for feeling the way we are feeling. Sometimes we think that we are being rationale, are listening to the other person speaking and yet we are conveying body language that suggests we are not being receptive. I have experienced all of these, and many other breaks in communication and I am sure I will experience many more.

Someone that demonstrates competent communication is my eighth grade teacher. I am sure that this sounds like a strange example, but I also had her as a mentor because she was the student success coordinator for the former school board I worked at. I have therefore experienced communicating with her as both a student and co-worker and mentor. This teacher was very engaging as a teacher. She made learning fun (even the boring stuff) and made everyone in the room feel as though they mattered, were valued and could accomplish anything. She was the reason that math finally clicked for me. I always struggled with math, even though I was a strong student in many other subject areas. She set the bar high for all of her students but because we respected her so much we wanted to reach her expectations. She took the time to work with me individually when I struggled and found a way to reach me and make something that was at one point so abstract for me, clear. As a co-worker she handled meetings and disagreements with poise. She was calm, never talked down to her staff members and asked for reasons and opinions from everyone. We really felt like our concerns, opinions and ideas mattered. I also loved that she had faith in her staff. We would come up with a plan together and then she would allow you the opportunity to go forward without being micromanaged from a distance. I felt comfortable seeking advice from her and knew that she would help find a resolution without being condescending.

I would definitely want to model these communication behaviors because both as a student and as a co-worker I knew that my voice was heard and my opinion mattered. Communication was open and encouraged in both situations which made her classroom and school run smoothly. She was well liked and respected by students, staff members and parents alike because she was able to be direct and firm but was fair and was able to listen to the opinions and ideas of others openly.