Communication

Sakshi has brought up an awesome point in her blog post. The whole concept of people saying “I don’t see color” is pointless. The only thing that is happening is people are avoiding the issue all together. We can all pretend that racism doesn’t exist but what good will that do? It won’t fix the issue at hand – it will just keep happening. Talking about an issue is what’s going to fix it.

I am a supplemental instructor for organic chemistry and recently I was learning the most effective ways of teaching or tutoring students. One of the worst things you can possibly do as a tutor is giving the students an answer to a practice question. It is important to talk through the question and help them reach the answer on their own. One of my favorite lines to use when someone asks me a question that I know they should be able to answer using basic knowledge of the material is “I don’t know, you tell me.” It might be annoying at first and students hate it but it makes them tell me their thought process. As we go through the thought process, we adjust it so that they could solve a similar problem in the future. So my point is avoiding talking about an issue or just saying its bad is like giving a student the answer without explaining it. They get absolutely nothing from it.

Communication is very important when it comes to analyzing and fixing a problem. Earlier this semester we read in Medical Apartheid about doctors who only communicated with like-minded people and prevented African American doctors to work in hospitals. “Until three or four decades ago, these researchers were speaking only to their like-minded peers – other whites, usually male and rarely of the lower classes.” (Washington, 10)  They also prevented communication with the world and only other doctors were able to understand the recordings. “The medical jargon in which such research papers are couched is often impenetrable even to well-educated nonmedical people.” (Washington, 12) This causes a sense of skepticism within the African American community. Doctors were no longer trusted which hurt African American health in general. There was also no one who was able to be a voice of reason for these doctors. Doctors are very intelligent but even they make poor decisions as Avery talked about in her post.

I believe communication could fix majority of the problems. The key is to be open minded and listen to the perspective of others. Every person has developed their standing on an issue based on facts and experiences they have encountered in their lives. Hearing out ideas of others could lead to middle ground solution to a problem at hand. Also talking over issues with children would build a solid foundation for dealing with major issues in their future.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.