Diversity

Wow! What an eye opening lecture! A lot of great discussion was had during our ice cream social. I’m continually surprised with new points of view on diversity and ways to view differences. I think what surprised me the most was the polls about the pictures of the woman and man. Mostly about how we answered the same question about each but the answers took on different tones. We focused more on what the person might describe themselves as when looking at the woman but as a group took a completely different approach to the man. I enjoy discussing gender perceptions because its something that everyone could, in theory, have similar points of view but don’t. This topic comes up frequently among my friends mostly when it comes to gender roles in dating. Some of the group feel strongly about traditional gender roles and chivalry and others take on a more nonconventional look on the topic. Some believe that the guy should pay for everything and hold the doors open while others view dating as a shared experience in the way that both parties are on a date with the other and niceties should be kept even, such as the bill. But when people hear the word diversity they almost always jump to race. The point was brought up a few times in the discussion that a lot of Hixsons tend to come from small town Iowa where diversity isn’t a prominent characteristic. I know that personally I come from a town nicknamed by surround towns as “White Branch”. Racial diversity is not something I experienced growing up but my parents pushed curiosity and learning about others. I’m not afraid to ask people about their cultures and experiences. Its one of the things I fully enjoy in my life. My personal belief that there will always be someone out there that will be different than you in one way or another but ignorance of what that difference means spreads hate. The only way to overcome that is to talk and ask questions to learn and understand. 

Barriers to Learning

This is another topic that is tough. Although there are many general barriers like Sebastian and Laura brought up in their lesson, each student will face different problems. I know my major barrier is time management. In the past two years I’ve tried about five or six different methods of trying to keep my focus and get everything done that is needed but at the end of my sophomore year I’m still trying to over come my barrier. This is the type of thing that as mentors we’ll have to be there for each individual and be able to help them through problems they may be having. For now we can only plan to address a wide range of barriers and some techniques to help. I know I’ve made lists upon lists of different tips and tricks to money and time management but I would need to research other problems students could face because those are the only two that I’ve had huge personal problems with. I think having everyone share during the lesson helped me identify some things I need to look into and think about at length to be really ready to help students next semester. I don’t want to come into the class and be ill prepared to help a student. Especially with barriers to learning, its not something you want the student to think is uncommon or unheard of because that might be discouraging to the student. They shouldn’t feel that having struggles isn’t normal or fixable. We want to create an environment where problems can be shared and worked through with ease to make sure they feel comfortable at ISU and stick with school. This topic always reminds be of my favorite quote of all time by Albert Einstein: Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. 

Money Management

I’m no stranger to near negative account balances but I believe that money management is one of the most important issues facing not only Hixson students but all college students. I know I’m not the only one since there is plenty of legislation pushing financial literacy not only in college but also in high school. I’ve taken two online courses on personal finances and somehow it still hasn’t completely stuck. The things that have stuck with me have been the personal stories I’ve heard from friends, family and speakers. There is a great educational session during Destination Iowa State that I’ve seen twice since coming to ISU and the lecturer’s information has always stuck with me although I haven’t been able to find away to fully implement some of his money saving tricks. Every time I try to keep a budget something comes up whether my less than reliable car pops up with a problem or my friends convince me to see that new 3-D movie, twice. I know most Hixson students know the value of a dollar from our backgrounds growing up but I know my spending habits changed drastically when coming to college. Back home, most of my friends were on the same boat as me and I was actually the one that was better off since I had a steady job and more free spending money. When I came to college I was surrounded by people that had a little more freedom with money and I didn’t pay much attention to that fact and overspent for my first year of college. My favorite lesson plan to write has been the one on money management because I’d hate to see 100 more students having to work 20+ hours on top of school to make up for lost savings and keep up with current expenses like I have been doing lately. I don’t want to scare the students next year but money is hard to keep track of and each one needs to find their way of doing it.  All we can do is help them find the tools for being financially responsible. 

Ethics

What a tough topic! Ethics is something that varies from person to person and lives in gray area. Personally, I like things to be black or white, right or wrong and when something comes up that doesn’t fit cleanly it makes me a little crazy. I haven’t encountered any ethical dilemmas in the workplace but plenty in my personal life and its still hard for me. One thing that I have the most issue with is how people view common courtesy. My roommate is not the most down to earth person I know but I still love her but sometimes we disagree about what we consider common courtesy. I’m a planner and she’s a go with the flow kind of person and communication lines are crossed frequently and it causes some problems. Should she text me when dinner plans change that aren’t time sensitive? Should I tell her when I go on a spontaneous trip to a friends house when she’s studying? We work problems like these out but the difficulty comes from the differences our ethics have and the way they clash. How do you approach a problem that the parties involve view differently with ethics? Where in the gray area do you meet? Half way? A little to the left or right? Will the decision you make offend or hurt the other? Ethics is tough. Its something that will always have to be considered on a individual basis. Each group working together will have feel each others morals out and tediously work through issues that they face. I think as a group of mentors, we have felt our morals out and could make decisions as a group fairly easily.  Next semester will be a whole new story when 100 new standards are added to the mix. We’ll have to adapt and feel out the new moral standards and where our gray area lands. 

Interpersonal Communication

Lets face it, I love to give advice. I am always there to give my two cents to any problem regardless if I have prior experience with it or not. I never really paid much attention to that fact until we learned about interpersonal communication vs advice giving. After the lesson I noticed how often my friends would come to me with a problem and my first impulse was to tell them what to do. Since then I’ve tried to practice the new communication style and just led them through their problem solving. Sometimes it was really difficult for me since I just wanted to tell them what was what and be done. I think using the interpersonal skills has worked out well for those that were coming to me for advice even though it was killing me inside not to comment. I know that this isn’t an easy thing to learn nor deploy and I look forward to having more practice before next semester. My biggest hurtle for this is changing the way I think about problems. I know that when I go to someone for advice, mostly my mom, she pulls this type of style out and its always drove me nuts growing up. I never wanted to think it through and really dig deep into issues, I just wanted the quick and easy answer. I guess I should be grateful to my mom for never giving up on my insistence and letting me figure things out on my own but I think that my personal frustration with this style has led to some mental barriers to using it. The lesson really opened my eyes to the benefits of the style and I think that this technique will be a great skill to have in my arsenal for the rest of my life. 

Conflict Styles

"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." Andrew Carnegie 

I’ve known for awhile now that my conflict style is mostly avoidant with a touch of compromising. This makes things a little hard when working in groups. Such as for our Digital Storytelling project we just completed, it was a little hard during the editing process to make everyone’s vision come completely alive. My first instinct is to include all the ideas and just make it work but with the constraints given there wasn’t a way to do it. Which put me in an uncomfortable position. I want everyone to be happy with the progress and I don’t want to have fights or disappointment for excluded material but it was just what needed to happen to fit in our five minute time limit. This whole process gave me an excellent opportunity to practice approaching things with a different conflict style which I desperately needed. Although I would love to argue that avoidant conflict style is by far superior to all the rest, I know that there are other styles that fit better in many situations. When they come up I can’t just pull aside and think “What style is best here?” Decisions need to be made and as peer mentors we’ll need to be able to quickly adapt for anything that could happen. Our class is an outline for what may happen next semester but there will always be surprises when dealing with students we don’t know well coming into it. Not only that but working with each other we need to be able to adapt to each others styles and make changes that will better our classes. 

Would you want your parents to see your Facebook right now?

Easten and Alex brought up a really good prompt this week in their lesson. Would I want my parents to see my Facebook right now? I guess my answer is pretty easy: Yes. I made my mom a Facebook because she asked me too. She's one of those over-protective parents and I know she uses it to keep track of me and I guess that keeps me in check on my online behavior. 

I’m sure everyone has those inappropriate friends as I do and I am constantly messaging them with “Sorry, had to un-tag myself from your status because it does not reflect good upon me.” It worries me when I see people carelessly posting pictures from parties when they are under-aged and using inappropriate language on their Facebooks. I can’t say I’m a saint by any means but I take extra care making sure my Facebook is not only presentable for my mom but also future employers.

I never really took the time to “clean up” my online profiles until I attended a conference for Delta Sigma Pi. One of the sessions I attended focused just on online behavior. The presenter had a lot of great ideas including creating two profiles. One strickly personal use and having it hidden by using your middle name instead of your last or a nickname instead of your first. The second being for public view and professional networking. Employers don’t only look at your profile but will also look at your friend’s. You might thinking “Then don’t add the recruiter.” This makes sense but one of the most profound things I took from that session was him saying “if I add you on Facebook, you better add me if you want that job. If you don’t, I know you have something to add but adding me and not having a professional profile could also hurt you.” I think this is important to adopt now because I know my peer mentors added me on Facebook and I’m sure we’ll do the same to our students and what wouldn’t we want them to see? 

Criticism

At the end of every student-led lesson we turn in our positive and negative statements to the presenters and I’ve never really thought about how important this simple act was. I was reading a blog on Thought Catalog the other day and it hit me how this end-of-the-class activity will directly improve our recitation classes next semester. In the article the author, Daniel Coffeen, discusses the difference between judgment and criticism. Here’s one of my favorite quotes from his blog:

“Critique, on the other hand, is generous: it engages the other on its own terms — or on terms of the event.  It lets the other do its thing and then wonders how the other can extend it and it, in turn, can extend the other. It is a glorious repartee.”

Reading the blog made me reflect and really focus on not just leaving a “good job” on the paper but really take the time and reflect on what I liked and didn’t like. It has drove me nuts all through college when professors return papers with “Good job” written on top but had subtracted a few points here and there for unexpressed reasons. A pure thumbs up or thumbs down doesn’t show effort you put into trying to help whomever your critiquing learn or grow, it hints at shallow involvement in the presentation. I think it’s a great thing that we have to opportunity to help each other grow and develop skills for next year so we give our very best to our class. This way we can give the best experience possible and reinforce the importance of the Hixson Program. If the incoming freshmen don’t get the most of the seminar, it could be a wasted effort. We are there to make sure their college experience is set off right.

Thought Catalog blog post:

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/the-generosity-of-criticism/