Getting to know my group members in this course has been an enjoyable experience. I am really interested in getting to know the person behind the name. I know it sounds crazy but I think sometimes I form my first impression of people from their name alone. It’s not fair and it’s not ok but it’s a personality quirk I have to work with. For instance, I know a three year old named Margaret. She’s beautiful, rambunctious, and ornery when she’s not being so sweet I could just eat her with a spoon. I also know a grown-up Margaret. She’s in her fifties but she acts like she’s eighty and she complains all the time about everything: the weather, the recliner she “has” to sit in even though it’s the “most uncomfortable chair”, the imaginary arthritis in her hands, her husband who is in his sixties but acts like he’s in his twenties. Get the picture? She’s a loveable grouch. I really need this three year old Margaret to be a complaining grouch because that’s just the label I’ve put to the name. My husband wouldn’t let me name our son Joshua because I insisted all “J” names are just good strong names and he said he knows it’s because I had a crush on a guy with a good strong “J” name a long time ago and it’s just creepy to name our kid that! He might be right. That guy a long time ago formed my impression of that name. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a preconceived notion for every name but getting to know my classmates is fun because it’s a chance for me to change these pre-conceived notions of mine and even (I know I know) form some new ones. Learning that many of my group members enjoy the same television shows as me and some of the same hobbies as me makes them real people. They are regular people like me trying to wade through a somewhat terrifying college course. They are confused at times, overwhelmed at times and when all that is over they still have to be a parent, pet owner, spouse, and housekeeper. It’s easy when taking an online course to just decide that you’re the only one overwhelmed with juggling school and life and that it’s easy for everyone else to submit excellent work because they just go to school and hang out! It’s comforting and refreshing to be reminded that my classmates are just as busy as me and in many cases even more so. I learned that one person in my class is not just a student but a dad with a full-time job, pets, AND he’s thinking about home-schooling next year. This encourages me. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this blog and then go finish my laundry and then go ensure that I have everything ready for my son’s lunch tomorrow and then go to dinner at my husband’s colleague’s house and then get two whiny kids to bed and then start over tomorrow and then…. I can do this because my classmates are doing it and they inspire me. I hope I can inspire them too.
While this has been an enjoyable process, the hardest part about getting to know my classmates is that it can be frustrating to read the tone intended sometimes. I feel like I ramble in my posts because I want to be really sure the readers understand what I am trying to say. If we were face to face it might not take so many words to convey my message. Likewise, I think I would better understand what my classmates are trying to say if it did not get lost in typos and misspelling. Some of us like to write and some of us hate to and, unfortunately, online work can be extremely tedious for those who do not like to write.
One thing I read in the module for this week that is helpful to me in working on group projects is that it is not only ok but necessary for all group members to be clear about when they are confused. Sometimes I’m more likely to assume I can figure something out from context clues than to just come out and ask someone to explain something to me more thoroughly. I don’t want them to think I’m inept and I don’t want them to think I’m being offensive. This week I actually e-mailed a small group member to ask how to go about contacting her in the correct way for our group assignment! I realized though, that if I slowed down I was able to find the answer to my own question tucked in somewhere. Sometimes I don’t know that I’m looking at the answer because I’m not even sure what it is I’m trying to ask in the first place. The nice part was that this team member admitted she was kind of confused too so I was able to step back a bit and reread the module information.
Danielle,
ReplyDeleteI enjoy reading you post. I complete understand what you are saying about first impressions. I am bad about looking at a person and forming an opinion about them, I am working on not doing that. I have found that the first impression is not always correct and that sometimes it may be the second or third that tells you the true person e.g., when I first moved to Ft. Bragg I was at the gym; when I go to the gym I am serious about it. While I was there I noticed a group of women working out, but to me they were not serious. I thought they were more or less playing around and that really frustrated me. I had a plan and I felt they were messing up my plan. I ended up leaving the gym and complaining to my husband about them. A few days later, again at the gym I run into the same ladies. I end up talking with them and finding out they are serious gym fanatics just like me, we became friends and that was five years ago. Although some of us have moved to other duty stations, we continue to chat and look forward to the day when we will see each other again. That has happened with a few of my old friends, that is why I never say good-bye to my friends, I always say see you later.
I had to laugh a little when you mentioned the name “J” for your son; it made me think back to when I was naming my children. I had all my children’s names picked out way before I ever met my husband. I had Christopher as a boy’s name, which my husband did not like because of a boy that he did not like named Christopher. Well I never had a boy, I ended up with three girls and we never really had an issue with the names that was until we had our third daughter. By the time we had our youngest daughter I was out of girl names. For my oldest daughter I named her my two favorite; Ashley and Alexandra and for my middle daughter I named her Brittany so when my third daughter came along I was out of names. My husband at first wanted to name her Courtney; I was like no way because I had an opinion about girls with that name. My husband then picked the name Cassandra, I was fine with that.
I understand what you are saying about “it can be frustrating to read the tone intended sometimes”. Online classes do not make that easy; you can read a person’s tone the wrong way. I like to read a person’s blog twice, sometimes more. The first time I will read the blog and not reply. I will think about the way I perceive the tone, and ask myself if my perception on the bloggers tone is the same as the tone they are trying to send, and then I will reread the blog again and then reply.
Amy: I'm wondering what the best way is to break some of these ways we have of forming impressions of people too quickly. Surely life experience is a good tool but it really is shameful. I have worked with teachers before who because they were annoyed by a child's mother were hard on that particular child. It's awful. Sometimes being human really affects our ability to be productive teachers!
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