Our project with Madison Elementary relates to this course on communication ethics and diversity because of the age of children we’ll be working with in the end product, the different ethics and viewpoints each of us has as individuals and will bring to the entire group, and the different demographics that may come with working within this elementary school.
Obviously, as with anything across cultural lines, there are differences in morals. When a person assumes about a culture, they make a judgment causing either a good or bad reaction. Each person has an idea of what is right and wrong, realized by where they lived and how they were brought up. It is much easier to know more about other cultures, and know other people’s moral character to understand everything. People assume all of the time. Whether it is right or wrong they assume that if you are different from them, you don't value the same things, and often times it takes a negative connotation. Because of that people may choose to communicate more, less, or differently. Assumptions of character differ from cultures all around, because actions and language differ from culture to culture. As an example, many cultures show affection when meeting someone or saying hi, but some cultures may not shake hands, because their hand is not clean/ good enough to touch someone else's. In the United States it is everyday culture to greet someone with a handshake. This is just one culture difference followed by many, many others depending on where someone resides in the world.
http://www.adl.org/issue_education/hateprejudice/Prejudice3.asp
http://pbskids.org/rogers/parentsteachers/theme/1581_t_art.html
8 comments:
Individually, I believe that communication ethics and diversity go hand in hand because of the fact that the ethics that an individual has due to their upbringing, beliefs and opinions, and background. In turn, those ethics someone has a huge effect on how they view others and how they stand out as an individual in society. Ethics, according to our text, is a systematic method for making judgments concerning voluntary actions of people, which can apply to the point I am stating about ethics and diversity going hand in hand. Those voluntary actions contribute to what they have learned and become accustomed to. Maxims, or rules, also helps contribute to ethics and diversity in that depending how one was raised, certain rules/norms and expectations have been set within that family or culture that need to be followed. But at the same time, situational ethics plays a big part in both communication ethics and diversity and our project agenda. Situational ethics is all about doing what feels right at the time, so as a group I hope we agree on a lot, but are still able to debate certain aspects of how individual games or activities should be run, set-up, and played in accordance and be able to decide in the moment how things should go. Sure looking back in the aftermath of the fun night, I’m sure we’ll have different standpoints or visions on how things could have gone better, but they were the best decisions at the time for our group.
Communication ethics and diversity are related in many ways. Everything we do relates to ethics, how we talk, our attitude, and our thoughts and feelings toward other people. By learning about communication ethics and diversity we as students can better understand how other people things and feel on specific subjects. An interesting term I learned about is enlightenment- the overriding goal of this movement was to be objective and citify in thinking about all aspects of both the physical and the human world. Enlightenment thinkers maintained that people could reason out for themselves how the world really worked, without having to rely on faith on revelation that could not be explained rationally or scientifically. Although I respect people who live by the divine command theory- holds that the ultimate rules of morality and ethics come from God, I feel that it not should be the only rules of ethics followed. An interesting term I learned is agape- love that is spiritual and selfless. I think that much of communication ethics involves agape and relationship with other people.
Communication ethics and diversity are related by, communication is by the way we talk to one another, and then diversity is how people are separated in groups. So communication ethics and diversity is related by when we are communicating with others. We are also being diverse by who is talking to whom. We seem to stick with people we are comfortable with, so we are being diverse to others. We may try and be diverse but with our friends we say what’s on our minds and to others we don’t say much who we are not familiar with. So it basically comes to the point to, who we are comfortable with, and who we are not comfortable with. We also go with our culture. When relating diversity and communication ethics, we tend to go with our culture too. We will go by our background, knowledge and our personal experience of how much we mixed with other cultures. Agape is another interesting term which is for the love. So communication ethics and diversity is related to agape, by we go with what we have the love for. Maxims or rules also relate to diversity and ethics. We deal with diversity by how we were raised, and by the rules that were set for us. Those that have a stricter up-bringing with our parents may be more open to different racial groups. While those who have a more relaxed up-bringing may see culture differently, and not accept it as much. So overall culture and diversity are related, but it’s just in different ways, and everyone will have different view points on it.
It is interesting to look at ethics as it pertains to diversity, the question of wheather a person really developes their own communication ethics, or wheather they were conditioned by factors in their development is a difficult question. Diversity is all around us and situational ethics is a part of ethics, which perhaps coincides best with the idea of diversity. This may be because in a situation one must use what they think is right or wrong to make a decision and the inherent differences in people, wheather it be through race, religion, or personality all contribute to diversity and all relate to a persons views on situational ethics. Rarely does someone refer to a guideline as a maxim, however a maxim gives a person a guideline to make a decision. In the circumstance of Madison Elementary School some maxims are needed to create a good environment suited for the entire family. These maxims are created in part by the school, but more importantly by our experiences. Our group should be able to use certain ideas from class to deal with the diversity at hand, afterall most of us are convinced this is a far less diverse situation then the most diverse of times we have been exposed to.
I think that ethics and diversity are very related in the sense that you have to ethically deal with diversity. We all have different ethics, based on how we were raised, based on the experiences we have had in life, based on our own personal thoughts and opinions. We are also diverse in so many ways. Our religion, our background, our race, our sex etc. We all need to ethically handle diversity and realize that we can learn things from people that are different from us. They can make us more well rounded and teach us different things.
Communication ethics and diversity are related in a couple of ways. In order to show respect for diversity of all types, it is a necessity that ethical communication be applied between people. I feel the ethics we apply in our lives are forged from a combination of the maxims of several groups/cultures, forming to make a sort of ethical blanket that most will base their judgement on. Many cultures follow in line with the divine command theory, believing their views are handed down from a higher being. Interestingly, sometimes these cultures will spawn agape ethics, where people make their decisions based on selfless love. From the cultures ethics set, individuals then form their own views. These individual views are where we run into issues with communication ethics, where people have forge different views on what is ethically right in light of diversity. Ultimately, a persons individual ethical views will determine if they are able to ethically communicate in a situation of diversity.
The primary ethics theory that ties these ideas together is that of Cultural Relativism. In the textbook this is explained using Chinua Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart” concerning European colonialism and African reactions to it. In the blog itself, the example of handshakes was given and how it is appropriate and expected in some cultural and totally foreign to other cultures. A citation of cultures that don’t believe their hand is clean or good enough to shake the hand of another would have made it a more effective example. Asian cultures such as the Japanese traditionally bowed to one another to show respect. Though some have westernized through business contact with Americans and Europeans, among one another their traditional greetings are still the same.
The first link provided concerns how to respectfully manage situations where children may be curious about certain differences. I think this was an excellent choice to include in the topic of the blog as it will be important to understand these concepts to make an environment that all the children will feel comfortable in for the Madison Fun Night. The second link is from the PBS website about Mr.Roger’s neighborhood, whose central message was helping children appreciate diversity. Many of us grew up watching PBS and Mr.Roger’s Neighborhood and I think the show did a good job of teaching children about diversity. However, not all cultures may be familiar with this show, and so perhaps a more universal example would have been better. Though I’m pretty sure that Mr.Rogers Neighborhood has been translated into quite a few other languages, the big question is whether those channels are available here in the Winona area. The graphic chosen was great in my opinion, showing children of different backgrounds having fun together.
I think it’s very interesting that your group decided to work with kids in order to experience the different kinds of diverse people we have in the world. Having personally worked at a daycare as a teacher’s aide, I can testify to the fact that amongst little kids there is a lot of difference to how they interact. I observed that most of the Caucasian kids were more outspoken in the way they addressed themselves and the teachers who cared for them. Being from a different ethnicity, I sometimes perceived this type of behavior, outspokenness, to be rude but this was perceived as a norm by other staffs while kids from a more conservative culture such as an Asian kid or an African kid was much less outspoken. This gave me an insight to how diversity really played a significant role in the lives of even children, how it shaped our behaviors and an understanding of how people from different race and cultures interact with each other. Most importantly I believe having such diversity amongst these kids is good for society because the kids are able to learn to love, tolerate and respect other kids (and people) regardless of their race.
I also think that this is a very good activity for your group to embark in because I believe in a way you would be able to see, through the young kids you are working with, how you interact with people from different race and cultures. This may lead to an individual re- evaluation of actions in terms of interacting with other races and cultures.
http://www.diversitykids.org/ I think this a website that deals with the diversity amongst kids by producing dolls. It supports the notion that kids are made up of a very diverse group of individuals and they hope that the kids or families that purchase the dolls would have a better understanding of their own race and people from other races.
http://www.urlwire.com/news/041504.html This website talks about how PBS has set up a fun programme for kids in order to teach them more about the different diverse cultures that are present in our world with the sole aim of hoping that the kids would grow a greater appreciation for every individual they come across in life.
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