I was always terrified to speak in front of groups of people until I was in my last semester of my undergraduate degree. I was terrified of anyone looking at me while I was talking; I would get tongue tied, sweat, lose my train of thought, and be in tears. However, I was having to teach in front of my peers on a regular basis as well as teach smaller children during college, I knew I needed to get over this fear. Now, I am able to get in front of people and speak with no problems. I enjoy speaking in front of others and I do not, in my opinion, get any type of anxiety from speaking in front of others.
Both of my evaluators scored me the same; this surprised me as I thought, because one person is my husband while the other is a co-worker and great friend, they will both see me differently as a communicator.
What surprised me about the assessments from my evaluators would be the fact that they both seemed to think I had mild anxiety when I had to speak in front of groups of people. I do not ever feel any anxiety, but that is me evaluating myself. I believe my evaluators see something I may not, and through this assessment, we were able to see this, and I can remember this when it comes time to speaking in front of others. However, upon receiving these results, I wanted to find out why they thought I had mild anxiety. My friend as well as my husband told me they hear my voice shaking and occasionally will see me trembling.
While continuing this course, I am learning I must be an effective communicator, but ensuring I must communicate in ways that my student's families can understand. As educators and communicators, we must remember to be objective and not subjective (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012). This can be difficult because human nature wants to kick in and quickly assume things. We cannot assume anything; we must get facts before we make assumptions. I refer back to our discussion assignment; we had to make assumptions based on our own personal schema, and that was unfair as we do not know anything about this lady or her life. We could damage a child and their families by making assumptions before we know the facts.
References
O'- Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.
I think that public speaking is one of the most terrifying things ever. I went a step further at one point in my life and tried my hand at stand up comedy. It is really amazing to climb up on stage and try to make someone laugh for three minutes. Terrifying. Great Post.
ReplyDeleteHi Susan,
ReplyDeleteI think it is truly amazing how your husband and friend scores were similar to yours. It shows that they are truly connected to you. You are right that as educators we should not be quick to jump to assumptions about people. I now catch myself when I start to make assumptions about people and remember how unfair it is to be that way. I enjoyed reading your post.
Hi Susan,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. I think it is amazing that your husband and friend scored the same on the tests. It shows that they are truly connected to you. I agree with you that as educators we must not make assumptions about people. This is something that I have struggled with from time to time. Now when I catch myself casting judgments about people I check myself, I do not want to be unfair to anybody especially to the children that are in my classroom.
Hi Susan,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. I have tried three times to reply to you so if another post from me should happen to come up I am sorry. I just wanted to say that it is amazing how your husband and friend came up with similar results it shows that they are truly connected to you. I also agree with you that as educators we should not be quick to jump to assumptions about people. This is something that now when I catch myself casting judgments I stop myself and remember that it is unfair to do that to anybody especially to the children that are in my classroom.
Susan,
ReplyDeleteI love the last statement you made. You summed up the learning thus far in this course and I love it. I was also surprised at my evaluations, not because they scored me the same but because on the anxiety test I received three different scores (myself, my mom, and my colleague). This week was definitely that reminder that how we perceive ourselves may not be how someone else sees us.
That is so interesting that they both scored you higher then you scored yourself. Now that you know what makes you come off a little anxious you will be able to work on it and improve it to appear more confident than you already were!
ReplyDeleteSusan this topic on communicate and communicator has show us al what we need work in your post have encourage me to become a effective communicator no matter how I feel about it but what the children and adult get out of what I am communicating about.
ReplyDeleteBecoming the best communicator that one can be is very challenging and even more challenging for people working with children and their families. I like how you touch on the importance of being and objective communicator because by staying objective we can better serve the individual needs of children and their families as well as build stronger relationships.
ReplyDelete