Inter-Gender Communication
Hey, for this education class I had to write my final paper about inter-gender communication. We were supposed to read this article about this book and than write the paper about how our own experiences reflect in the paper. At this point in the year I really didn't care how I did on the paper, so I chose to write it completely honestly. However, I ended up with an A in the class, so I guess I did OK on the paper. Anyway here it is:
In her book, "You Just Don't Understand Me" Debrah Tannen outlines the communication crime that most men and women are guilty of. I freely admit that I am as guilty as anyone. I have many female friends that I often talk with, and just as it described in this article, they often attempt to share their problems with me. Perhaps for them they are sharing their troubles in order to forge a better relationship between us, but to be perfectly honest, all I hear is complaining.
Of chores I don't say this to the women I am speaking to. Mostly I just nod a lot and try to sound sympathetic knowing that eventually we can talk about something I'm interested in. Perhaps it's a bit shallow to admit that my solution to the inter-gender communication problem is to "fake it", but its worked so far.
And let us not forget that I am not the only one who fakes interest for the betterment of a given conversation. I have many times started talking to female friends of mine and seen them just smile and nod at me with no real interest in what I have to say. However, unlike some people, this does not offend me at all. If I want to say something, and you don't think it's that interesting, all I ask is that you smile and no, and than we can move on to something else.
The difference in the way men and women communicate can have a huge impact on a teacher. I have enough experience communicating with males to do that very well, but this book offers me some very good information on how to communicate with women. Although I admittedly have no real desire to start communicating the women do, I at least understand the way they communicate now, and knowing is half the battle.
The whole situation reminds me of something our class discussed earlier about prejudice. Everyone has prejudices, but if you know what your prejudices are they are less likely to cause a problem. I have an inherent prejudice which says that talking like a guy is better than talking like a woman, but I know that. Because I know that I can bite the bullet and at least attempt to communicate with my female students in a way they are more accustomed to.
When a female student, parent, or faculty member tells me some of the problems they are having, I know that they are not simply complaining for its own sake. It is also possible that they are not sharing their problems because they want advice, and I should keep that in mind when talking to them.
Another topic in this book that can be very useful in the classroom is the way in which men and women work in groups. From my own personal experience I can say that men and women do group work differently. As the book says women tend to all put forward ideas, which are all accepted and combined to form the groups idea, thus consensus is achieved. Men on the other hand all have their own ideas about what should be done, and the first thing the group has to do is argue over who's idea is the best.
Both of these methods can be very useful for accomplishing your group's task. The best method is somewhere in between. Everyone's ideas should be heard, and when possible incorporated into the project. However, the simple fact remains that some ideas are better than others, and a bad idea should not be accepted simply to further group unity. Becasue of this fact groups should be made up of men and women, and they should all work together cohesively (buyt not too cohesively).
Men and women might not be in agreement on how to communicate, but we do all agree that communication is very important. Communication is especially important in education. In fact, education could be described as a method of communicating ideas and values to a younger generation. Thus it is important for a good teacher to understand how men and women communicate. I hope that my knowledge of how communication works will help me to better understand my female students, and if it doesn't, well than I guess I'll just have to keep faking it.
In her book, "You Just Don't Understand Me" Debrah Tannen outlines the communication crime that most men and women are guilty of. I freely admit that I am as guilty as anyone. I have many female friends that I often talk with, and just as it described in this article, they often attempt to share their problems with me. Perhaps for them they are sharing their troubles in order to forge a better relationship between us, but to be perfectly honest, all I hear is complaining.
Of chores I don't say this to the women I am speaking to. Mostly I just nod a lot and try to sound sympathetic knowing that eventually we can talk about something I'm interested in. Perhaps it's a bit shallow to admit that my solution to the inter-gender communication problem is to "fake it", but its worked so far.
And let us not forget that I am not the only one who fakes interest for the betterment of a given conversation. I have many times started talking to female friends of mine and seen them just smile and nod at me with no real interest in what I have to say. However, unlike some people, this does not offend me at all. If I want to say something, and you don't think it's that interesting, all I ask is that you smile and no, and than we can move on to something else.
The difference in the way men and women communicate can have a huge impact on a teacher. I have enough experience communicating with males to do that very well, but this book offers me some very good information on how to communicate with women. Although I admittedly have no real desire to start communicating the women do, I at least understand the way they communicate now, and knowing is half the battle.
The whole situation reminds me of something our class discussed earlier about prejudice. Everyone has prejudices, but if you know what your prejudices are they are less likely to cause a problem. I have an inherent prejudice which says that talking like a guy is better than talking like a woman, but I know that. Because I know that I can bite the bullet and at least attempt to communicate with my female students in a way they are more accustomed to.
When a female student, parent, or faculty member tells me some of the problems they are having, I know that they are not simply complaining for its own sake. It is also possible that they are not sharing their problems because they want advice, and I should keep that in mind when talking to them.
Another topic in this book that can be very useful in the classroom is the way in which men and women work in groups. From my own personal experience I can say that men and women do group work differently. As the book says women tend to all put forward ideas, which are all accepted and combined to form the groups idea, thus consensus is achieved. Men on the other hand all have their own ideas about what should be done, and the first thing the group has to do is argue over who's idea is the best.
Both of these methods can be very useful for accomplishing your group's task. The best method is somewhere in between. Everyone's ideas should be heard, and when possible incorporated into the project. However, the simple fact remains that some ideas are better than others, and a bad idea should not be accepted simply to further group unity. Becasue of this fact groups should be made up of men and women, and they should all work together cohesively (buyt not too cohesively).
Men and women might not be in agreement on how to communicate, but we do all agree that communication is very important. Communication is especially important in education. In fact, education could be described as a method of communicating ideas and values to a younger generation. Thus it is important for a good teacher to understand how men and women communicate. I hope that my knowledge of how communication works will help me to better understand my female students, and if it doesn't, well than I guess I'll just have to keep faking it.
posted by Blake Stockdale at 10:27 AM
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