Date:09/10/08
Time:9:40 PM
Place:Home

I am so glad to be home. I've been on the run since 7 this morning. Not a bad day, just tiring. Tonight I had my Human Communications class. We had a project where we had to bring in a picture of someone we know. Each student was randomly given another students photo. We had to judge each picture with however we perceived them. Not a good idea I don't think. Some of the judgements were very rude and unkind. Some opinions should never be spoken out loud. I suppose that's where maturity comes into play. A mature person would recognize the fact that their "true" opinion may hurt someones feelings or make them angry. Thus, the spoken opinion should be kind and not vicious or mean. These pictures were of other students sibling, parents, or significant others. It was a good lesson I suppose. And I hope the ones who spoke their unkindness felt like stuffing their feet in their mouths. I brought in a picture of my 8 year old Nephew. Because of the size of the class the teacher randomly chose a speaker. My picture wasn't addressed but I wonder what assumptions would have been made of him. The truth is that he is a gorgeous child, very intelligent. He loves Karate and is actually very good at it. He is very interested in history about War and the military. I'm not sure if I should feel proud of his desire to learn or worry about his possible career path. I just wonder what would have been said about him. I'm not sure how I would have reacted if it was a negative judgement. My instinct of course is to defend him. But diplomacy is an important attribute to affective communication. Ha Ha.
Hopefully this class is planting some seeds for a few of these students. My thought is you should always put yourself in the other persons shoes before rushing to rash judgements. Why would anyone want to intentionally offend someone else