Blogpost 4

Critical Reflection on Learning in the Course

Hello guys! We have reached the end of the COM150 module. Thinking back to my first blogpost, I mentioned that I would like to achieve 2 goals. 1. To understand and decode others’ messages in as many perspective as I can in the shortest amount of time, before my body/emotion takes over my mind, and 2. To broaden my perspective and learn with an open heart by contributing as much as I could.

I can now proudly say that I have achieved my goals that I have set out for myself! I am now able to step back and apply the 6 seconds model during my SEEMS’s SEP150 module which requires much patience and hard work. There were times when I wanted to give up, times where I was so angry with my groupmates but I didn’t let my emotions take over me. This is when I apply the 6 seconds model by slowing myself down and think about what could happen if I were to respond in a specific way. I would then think about the reasons for the actions/words that came from my teammates. Through that, I was then able to broaden my perspective and absorb more. However, I believe I will need to practice and make it into a habit, otherwise soon after I will neglect this important model.

In this COM150 module, we had a project that required us to solve a problem using what we have learnt in these 4 months. Through this project, I have learnt a few things, mainly how to work in a big group. We may think that by working in a big group, it is beneficial to us as workload could be lesser. That may be the case, but have you ever thought about the disadvantages of working in big groups? Being in a group with members from different course is already a problem, much less with 5 people. This means that our timing that we are available would clash, and it was hard for us to agree on a timing to have a meeting. Finding time for meetings were difficult, and this causes our aim for the week to be delayed. For example, if we aim to finalise the plot of the video by Wednesday, it could be delayed due to the workload of the other modules, resulting in a post-pone of meeting to discuss the plot. Therefore, more often than not, we had to have meetings through our phones/ computers. Instead of meeting up to discuss about our direction of the assignments, we discussed it through our chat group. Although it takes a lot of time as we have to wait for each other's reply, we still managed to get things done at the end of the day. 

Also, with so many members in a group, the members tend to get shadowed over those that are more outspoken with their views and ideas. People start to get left out, and their ideas didn’t carry any weight in the group. Thankfully, my group members will ask from time to time about the ideas that the soft-spoken members have.

Through this module, there are few things that I took away. During the first half of the module, we touched on many topics about understanding others as well as ourselves, and it was through those, that I realised that I don't know myself as much as I think I know. Also, I learnt that we should always research on the culture that a foreign land has before going overseas, even if we have an impression of what their culture is. Cultures are important as they are the roots of the people which I need to respect. Lastly, I learnt that a lot of compromises and communication has to be made within a group. It is especially so, when working im a big group. about compromises between my group members.

Previously, I felt that this module was redundant as I took it before while I was in Polytechnic. I was also able to exempt this module as I scored an A. However, throughout this time, I have learnt so much from Hwee Hoon and Brad. I remember making the choice of trying out the first week just like what my supervisor advised me to as I could still drop out without any charges. However, after attending the first 2 lessons, I was engaged with how Hwee Hoon was giving out her lessons and I really enjoyed it. I decided to stay on as I know I would be able to learn much more from her.  She taught me many things, but the most important one is she encourages us to think critically and be more open to others. Then I had Brad after the first half of the module, I remember I was sad that Hwee Hoon was going to be replaced as I stayed in the course for her. But, Brad was just as good, as I could learn more about the different cultures when he shared with us his personal stories. His passion was overwhelming and I look forward to every of his lessons. I love his outgoing style and teaching with application and more applications rather than slides.

Overall, I felt that module is very important as it equips me with many skills such as interpersonal and intrapersonal communication skills, leadership skills and presentation skills. Through the project presentation that we had, I was able to learn from my mistakes and improve on it for the other presentation that I will make in the future. It was also a refresher to be a better team-player within the project. Thank you so much to both of you, I really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart!

(Edited on 20 August 2017)

Project Summary

Introduction

In our society, we are constantly facing different types of situations which comprises of much emotions. Being angry, sad or disappointed with peers, professors and project mates. It is very common for us to act rashly and having to face the consequences.

Army is an organisation which has very strong regimentation and is all about having discipline. To be Absent Without Leave (AWOL) is one of the most serious offence (Singapore Legal Advice, 2012) in the army.  Many men will result to AWOL as they could not handle the amount of stress and pressure placed on them during the 2 years of training to be a soldier.  They have to be away from their family and loved ones for most of the time of the week, only being able to see them during the weekends. Due to the lack of support through this tough time, they would feel mentally weak and decide to run away from the pressure that is upon them to seek comfort.

Problem Identification

Emotions are an aspect of our lives that we tend to have very little control over. They are volatile, they come and go as they please, and it is generally very difficult to not experience any sort of strong emotional response to external stimuli. Whether it is joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, emotions come in a variety of forms, and often play big parts in influencing our day to day decision making. Since emotions are something that is so difficult to properly control or predict, we intend to seek alternative ways to keep ourselves from acting out based on these emotions instead.

A particular cadet has to choose between his immediate desire to attend the funeral of his Aunt, or to be a professional soldier to stay through his training course. On one hand, is an Aunt that has taken care of him since young, seeing him through his rebellious teenage years, and now becoming his support to endure National Service (NS). On the other hand, he was specially appointed by his superior to have a chance to become an officer, and he was already in his last week of training before he graduates from the course and becomes an officer.

Objective of Study

Our purpose of this study is to understand the tremendous stress anyone could experience from various aspect of their lives. These stress that they face may either be from high performance expectation from their higher ups or even in their personal lives.  Therefore, we aim to help resolve problems of people through understanding their own mind-sets and responses. From there, we will be able to give them advice on what they could do to prevent them from making rash and irrational decision which they could regret.

Data Collection/ Research Method

There are two separate lines of research.

The primary research obtains real life data on males who have completed NS and are of 25 years old and below.  The data pertains to men who have/had issues with emotional control. The purpose of this is to determine how and when people may made rash decisions in the past which they now regret.

The secondary source of research conducted is based on research papers and other educational sources published on the internet. The focused on finding out advice which helps people decide how they should act on said emotions and prevent themselves from going overboard.

Potential Solution / Implementation for Problem Solution

Our proposed solution involves the theory of the 6 Seconds Model of “Know Yourself, Choose Yourself, Give Yourself” (Freedman, 2010).

The Six Seconds model would serve as a guide for NS men to turn emotional intelligence theory into practice. The model aims for one to become more aware (noticing what you do), more intentional (doing what you mean), and more purposeful (doing it for a reason).

Through this, they will be able to adapt, organize their thoughts and ensure that they do not lose control. It help them when they are in high stress situations to suppress their emotions and gain control of their minds which will prevent negative effects from rash decisions.

This 6 Seconds Model can be implemented by teaching the NS men on what the model is. This is because not many of us would be well-versed with the model. By teaching what the model is, they will then be able to put it into use once they have understood the framework.

How can it be taught to the NS men? While doing Basic Military Training (BMT) during the first 3 months of their service to the nation, the Officers could conduct lessons for the men to better prepare them for the challenges that they will face throughout their full 2 years of NS.

However, this does not solve the problem. When NS men enter the army, they would be aged 18 and above. These men would have already developed a rigid thinking. Therefore, for the 6 seconds model to be more effective, the men should be taught while at a young age while their emotional thinking are still developing. To educate them at a young age, the Ministry of Education (MOE) could add in lessons regarding mental development into the curriculum of the primary/ secondary school, just like how Sexual Education (SexEd) was taught. If the men were to learn about the 6 Seconds Model since they were a child, they would be well-versed with how to use this framework and be able to implement it when they enter NS or even the workforce. 

Concluding Thoughts

When a conflict ensues which triggers strong emotional responses, the best thing to do is to simply not act. This is because one cannot think straight under influence of strong emotions, meaning the best thing to do is to calm down and allow the turbulent emotions to recede. After all, the best way to ensure one does nothing harmful is to do nothing at all. Take the time to cool down, relax, and generally gather one’s thoughts, and instead of taking a hasty action when one is emotionally overwhelmed, come back later.

After one has calmed down, one will then be able to perceive and analyse the situation from a more objective perspective. This is crucial, as emotional discord will cause one to become biased and adopt subjective viewpoints when tackling problems, which results in one overlooking information or refusing to accept explanations. Since information is the root of resolving all conflicts and problems, blocking oneself from properly analysing and deriving said information greatly restricts one’s capacity to resolve a conflict. Obtaining this information can only be properly done if emotions are no longer part of the equation, allowing objective and logical analysis. Once that is done, one can effectively form a plan to resolve said conflict.

References:

Freedman, J. (2010, January 27). The six seconds model of emotional intelligence: EQ in action. Retrieved July 21, 2017, from http://www.6seconds.org/2010/01/27/the-six-seconds-eq-model/ 

Singapore Legal Advice (2012, October 16). Military law and how it affects every singaporean son. Retrieved August 13, 2017, from https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/military-law-and-how-it-affects-every-singaporean-son/ 

(edited on 13 August 2017)

FIGHT => FiGHT

Conflict management
First of all, why my title is FIGHT to FiGHT, this is because conflict always starts off with both parties being egoistic, having a big "i" symbolises the self-centeredness. I would like to share some insights which I strongly agree.

What do you think or infer from this simple picture? In the past, I will always be regarded as the white human in the middle. I believe to most, the focus and emphasis would be on the people who are fighting. But to me, I always think that the person being in the middle of such situation is the most courageous. That's not the main highlight of this blog post. However, I would like to touch on "him", the middleman. In this picture, he is holding the 2 men apart, preventing the fight. He needs to be respected by both parties, he needs to be physically stronger, mentally brave to step forward. At the same time, he needs to be the rational guy to solve or at least delay this situation until both parties apply their 6 seconds model. Why hold the head and not the shoulder? I choose to infer that the artist is trying to bring across to readers that both parties are irrational and not using their heads to think with their fist clenched and held up high. Does the colour white represent impartial, purity like our PAP? Do leave a comment and share with me your insights too!


What are your best tips on conflict management? Personally, I strongly live on these few tips which I gathered throughout my years of experience with conflicts. I would always put the blame onto myself instead of pointing fingers and complaining what the other party did wrong. I start to blame myself before slowly letting them realise they made some mistakes themselves too. Also, when we are sharing, we should never interrupt and listen attentively. Sometimes, there cannot be a perfect solution and a compromise cannot be made, such as safety. However, following the above steps will definitely ease the tension. Only then will we be able to think logically and sit down to discuss calmly for other alternatives. I believe in starting a prayer if you could, right before the argument, or when you feel that you lost control of your own emotions. Yes, you may laugh, but my main reason is not for you to seek forgiveness or help from God. This is for you to apply the 6 second model, acting as a form of reflection and mediation. I do hope that the next time you encounter such situation, you will be able to remember these humbles insights from me.

Blogpost 2 – First draft

Problem

Dear readers, how have you been?

Recently, my mother changed to a smart phone as she wants to catch up with the technology and times. The main thing that she wanted to do with the phone was to have more interaction with us, her children. Therefore, I introduced her to Facebook.

However, my mother and I had an argument over a Facebook post soon after teaching her how to use the application. She came across a post which shows a picture of a cat, but it has as many legs as a millipede has. She was so excited and she showed it to me proudly saying that if it was not for Facebook, she would not have such information and knowledge and thanked me profusely.

At that instance, I was lost for words. To laugh or to cry? In the next moment, my mouth took over my mind, harsh words came out without hesitation. "Why are you so naive? Are you sure you are my mother?" I exclaimed, bursting out in laughter. Within the split second, I felt pain on my cheeks. With my eardrums ringing, I read "so much for raising you" from her lips. Yes, I got slapped.

I did not feel that I have done anything wrong. The way that we communicate within the family is always very direct and all of us were very prone to teasing. I teased my mum like how I normally would, but I received a totally unexpected response from her. Was it because I unknowingly talked slightly harsher today? It was because I was too shocked at how my mother would even believe that a cat has as many legs as a centipede has. If it was a case of a cat having one or two extra legs, I would not have the same reaction. Or was it because my mum could not receive my message well with her own reasons?

Solution

Thank you so much for all of the comments. I like Alfin’s comment especially as he mentioned about having to pause and be grounded as one of the resolving conflict tips. It also reminded me that in our Chinese culture, manners and upbringing is of utmost importance.  I should not have let my mouth took over my mind. Thinking about how she took care of me, being my first teacher and being my mentor in my early life. I took a moment to calm down and thought about the 6 seconds model. I thought about what I have done that caused my mother to react this way. She must have been very disappointed when I slipped my mouth, implying that she is stupid. I realised that I was being very ungrateful towards her, and thus apologised to her.

My mother spent so much of her hard earn money to send me to school, to grow together with my classmates. And now that I have an education, I looked down on her for being "outdated". I should have had better EQ to be patient with her like how she was with me when I was a child that knew nothing.

Subsequently, my mum and I sat down together to talk about the gimmicks and danger that could be found online. I reminded her that not everything online, can be trusted and validation is necessary. She had to go through the process of thinking, deciphering and researching before believing an article. My mother then became grateful towards me for helping her open up to the social world. She eventually shared with me that she was also sorry for giving me a slap, letting anger took over her and it pained her heart. Then we gave each other a hug and said goodnight!

All in all, I feel that even though we will always tease each other and say things that the other person does not like to hear, we must always know when to stop. “We do it because we may not be aware of how our own behavior contributes to interpersonal problems.”(Bellafiore, 2017). Therefore, one should always be conscious of the limits. Taking my conflict as an example, it would be to know that I should not have made fun of her for giving me education. Through this step of identifying, we would be able to prevent unhappiness within the relationship with others.
References:
Bellafiore, D. (2016, April 16). Interpersonal Conflict and Effective Communication. Retrieved July 08, 2017, from http://www.drbalternatives.com/articles/cc2.html

(edited on 11/7/2017)

Being a mute

During lesson yesterday, we had a very engaging activity which was for us to maintain a conversation with our partners while back faced each other. It was really a challenge especially if the number of people increases. That was when we all realised how important non-verbal communication is. Without looking at the gestures or ques from our classmates we were unable to know whose turn it was to speak up, also we had to pay a huge amount of effort to identify from the tone of the speaker. For example is the speaker slowing down or coming to an end, is someone going to continue from his end, whose turn is it to speak now. Actions speak louder than words, does this relate to you?

Descriptive Reflection: Strengths and Challenges in Communicating (EDIT2)

 What is communication? To me, words are merely a medium for us to relate meanings which leads to communication. Instead of using a river as a metaphor, I would use a magnet to describe communication. For interpersonal communication, the image of two magnets with like poles that repel symbolises the idea that both parties in a communication situation cannot be speaking at the same time. To build relations, only one party should be speaking while the rest are listening. The constant magnetic field surrounding the magnet would be the environment and the noise, which symbolise intra-communication.

Personally, I feel that one of my strengths in communicating is that I am very open-minded as I can talk to anyone about anything under the sun. I love to interact with people especially strangers as I find joy in making new friends. By doing so I will be able to start a new journey with them and also know myself better. An analogy would be a girl going down to the dance floor and survey how much attention she could get to know her self-worth or market value. I love having heart to heart talks with anyone under the sun as it acts like a reflection process to me. Another strength in communication would be being a good listener. Stories make me ponder and like a sponge, I absorb every bit of information from the speakers. Through these stories, I am able to learn and gain vicarious  experiences, without having to physically go through them myself. Yet I would know the outcome and even the precautions to take when I encounter such events.

However, my strength can be posed as challenges too. Being equipped and exposed to these experiences, sometimes I feel that I am actually “entertaining” my friends when they share their common stories with me. This is because right after I know what they are implying or suggesting I already relate to their stories and already know how to advise, console or react to their actions. This way even before they could finish their stories, I would have made some assumptions which is rude. Thus, the challenge is I would have to constantly remind myself not to do make assumptions before the speaker finishes his story. Another challenge is that I feel after years of experiences in the sales and marketing industry, being overly convincing and having a magnitude of influence, I tend to manipulate others, sometimes even without me knowing. Thus I have to constantly remind myself to put myself in the shoes of others. However most of the time I face a dilemma: what if my decision and the results are for my audience’s own well being but he could not see the it? Should I still enforce it or let him regret only when he finally realised? For me, I am the type of person that I would rather you hate me now, than to go against my morals and let you be. An example would be during a gym session, I confronted someone to correct her form as she was doing her squats wrongly. Maybe to her, I should not have done that as it does not concern me or thinks I am flirting with her. But I would rather she hate me for intervening and misunderstanding me than to allow her to be inflicted with a lifetime injury. Sometimes though such incidents I would find out that it is me who has the wrong form, thus I was able to correct and improve myself.

Today, during the lesson, when discussing the topic on “meaning are words”, I thought of the example of person 'B' scolding person 'A', person 'A' should not react by scolding him, but understand that he is angry and at that point of time, words are not the real meaning whereas the reason behind his actions are. It struck me that being a hot-tempered person myself, I always fail to react appropriately. Thus, one of the objectives I would like to achieve towards the end of this module would be understanding and decoding others’ messages in as many perspectives as I can in the shortest amount of time, before my body or rage takes over my mind. All this while, I thought it was because of anger management but maybe it is because the message conveyed is unclear which leads to misunderstandings. Another objective would be to broaden my perspective and learn with an open heart. Thus I hope to be able to contribute as much as I could in class, to be able to induce thinking so that my classmates would be able to learn as much as I learnt from them. Lastly, I would like to end this post with this quote below, which I find very meaningful. Communication is hard to come by these days as we are living in a world where technology is very advanced. Wherever we go, we will be seeing everyone on their cell phones, living as a ‘phubber’, playing games or scrolling through social media. The opportunity to sit down with your love ones and focus on what they have to say requires so much effort. Most of the time, it is only possible after a certain degree of argument or reprimanding by their love ones. Nevertheless, to have an effective communication I feel that mutual respect plays a huge factor, wanting and having to communicate means world apart. Without the mutual respect, the audience would not be willing to listen, and the speaker would not keen to share as much. Communication that inspires, encourages people are always the best to me as I believe everyone at any point of time would need some form of motivation and seek help or escape the reality.

Take a knee

Taking a knee can have many meanings, the one most people know would be as the term used in American football. However, to me it means to stop, take a deep breath and think. When I encounter any situation which makes me lose consciousness, I feel that the most important thing to do is to take a knee. This action can also be known as reflection, reflection is essential in our lives, only through it will we be able to learn and prevent making the same mistakes in the future, accumulating experiences too.

Today, I was introduced to the four types of listening styles, people-orientated, content-orientated, action-orientated and time-orientated listening. I ticked every single box for all the listening types as I feel that all the statements applies to me. Different listening styles dedicated for various types of situation at that particular point of time. For example, people-orientated listening for heart-to-heart talk , content-oriented listening when learning from professor and mentors, action-orientated listening for someone working under me or to my children and lastly time-orientated listening for group meetings or when I encounter with promoters selling me something i do not need in my life, like tampons.

Finally, i would like to end off with a picture, have a good laugh guys! Stay tune for my next post.