Our group has just completed our planned fun night at Madison Elementary on October 10th which took place from 6:30 till 8:00. We all participated in different activities during the fun night with the diverse groups of children present. We interacted with these children by participating in the many activities that we had planned.Many of us feel that parental influence on the child determines many of the child’s behavior choices in various situations. For example, there was one child with curly hair and freckles that agitated many of the group members by being disrespectful of our authority. Towards the end of the night we saw the child’s mother scolding him in such a way that was disrespectful to the child and also showed her immaturity as a parent. It was evident that the actions portrayed by the mother were directly demonstrated through her son’s behavior. We feel this is a large contributor of child diversity. There were children with the opposite actions that were directly influenced by their parent’s actions as well. Their parents were calm, caring and respectful so in return the child acted in a respectful way towards us and other children.
Some ideas that we have discussed since the last blog have included the ethics of care as described in our book as stressing relationships , nurturing, and the actual human circumstance in which people find themselves. We feel this applies to our project because we can see the different ways that parents interact with their children. The way the parents care for their child effects the child’s view towards relationships with other adults, authority figures, and close peers. This is based off of the parents we saw interact with their children at family fun night.
The second term we have used to analyze our experience at the Madison fun night was Dialogical Ethics. Dialogical ethics, is defined in our book as a system in which ethics can be judged by the attitudes and behaviors demonstrated by each participant in a communication transaction. For instance; we used our previous experience dealing with children and used that in order to prepare the activities and assignments. Our previous experience helped us to create ethical ways of dealing with children of diverse backgrounds.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-ethics/
http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/ethics/virtthry.htm
(We feel that our picture is applicable to our blog in that it shows children of different cultures interacting with one another in a positive way.)
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Recently, on October 10th, our group completed our project of planning, setting up, and running the family fun night at Madison Elementary. The night went really smoothly and our group worked very well together during all the aspects of the project. With regards to the interactions I had with children, parents and guardians who attended the event, some specific communication ethics and ideas seem to fit wonderfully.
The first idea I feel applies is that of relativism, which is a type of situational ethic. According to our textbook, in order to behave in an ethical fashion with regards to relativism, we need to look at each situation we find ourselves in from a coordinate viewpoint and with an attitude that regards the other people in the situation. At the same time, we should care for ourselves as well, but not to the point of caring ONLY for ourselves. I believe this idea is applicable to my personal involvement in the Madison Elementary fun night and to my interactions with the children there because, while I was participating in order to achieve my own personal means of a grade for class, I was also taking into consideration caring for the children that I came into contact with by helping them with the project at the table I was running and talking to them and making sure they were having a good time.
Next I believe that utilitarianism goes almost hand in hand with the idea of relativism in this case. With utilitarianism, we have to consider if the end result of a situation will justify the means and ideally, the ends should bring about the most amount of happiness to the greatest amount of people. I think that the means, which in this case would be all of our groups planning and work for the event, definitely justify the means, which would be the outcome of the event not only for the children there but the parents and us as well, because in the end everyone was happy. We were happy for getting our project done and doing it successfully, the children were happy for getting to participate in a great activity night, and the parents were happy that their children had fun as well.
Finally, I believe that the ethics of care, which according to our textbook, stresses nurturance, and the actual human circumstances in which people find themselves, applies to our interactions with the children. Naturally, whenever you are in a communication type situation with a child you must bring yourself closer to their own personal level of communication and must nurture their thoughts, ideas, and needs. This is something that I found evident and good to experience when interacting with the children during the event, since I hadn't necessarily experienced it before as I am not around children often. And with that in mind, and the consideration of the ethics of care, it will also help in any future experiences I may have interacting with children.
Some terms that I feel are appropriate to describe our Madison fun night include utilitarianism, the maximization principle, and the ethics of care. First, I decided to include utilitarianism as a concept because I feel that our group tried to implement this principle while planning the fun night. Essentially, we tried to provide the greatest amount of good, or fun, to the greatest number of children and adults present which I think we successfully completed. Another term that goes along with utilitarianism is the maximization principle, which states that ethical actions are those that maximize the most good for the most people. I think this principal most accurately describes our intentions for the fun night, we tried to maximize the amount of fun that the children could have while participating in our fun night. The final term that I choose to use is the ethics of care. Ethics of care can be described as ethical acts are performed out of care for other people rather than because of rules of ethics. I feel that our group really cared about the children present at the fun night and that we treated all of the children out of care rather than just because we were doing a project to get a grade, or just because we felt we had to.
I believe that communication ethics played a big role when it came it interacting with the diverse group at Madison Fun Night. I think that one of the reason’s why this event worked out so well is because ethics played a big role in our group project. The ethics of dialogue in interpersonal communication is one thing that I took into consideration when communicating with the children. This kind of dialogue requires both talking and listening on both sides. Our book also states that it is a give-and –take situation. Although I had a specific outcome in mind for this project, I knew that I had to compromise on some issues in order for the project to be a success as a whole. We had to let some of the children stand closer to the fishing wall because they were not tall enough to place the poles over the wall. Another part of this concept is trust; in order for the children to trust us we had to listen to their needs at the time. Showing that we were interested in what they had to say showed them that we trusted and valued their opinions. Character when communicating ethically in interpersonal relationships was another term that I took into consideration during this project. In our book the authors say that a person with good character will be virtuous and have integrity. I felt that this concept was important because the children were not going to listen and respect us if they felt that we were not virtuous and coming from a place of high integrity. If we were to lie and cheat the children would see this and then not listen to our directions. They would feel no trust between us, and trust is very important when communicating with others. While doing this project I also kept in mind that each culture is diverse in how they act and what they find ethical. We recently talked in class about how different cultures handle specific situations differently. I felt that this was important to keep in mind when interacting with the children because I knew that not all of the children would have the same cultural beliefs that I have. By remembering that I was working with a diverse group of children it helped me to not get upset with some of the kids. There were a couple of times when I saw the children doing things that I did not feel were appropriate. I also noticed that their parents were close by and had no issues with the way their children were behaving. I decided that this could possibly be a difference in cultures and what each finds to be acceptable. I believe that ethics played a large role in making Madison Fun Night a success.
While thinking back to the Madison Fun night and considering what new terms could be used to help me describe the experience there are a few that come to mind. The difference between modernism and post-modernism could be an interesting one to consider. The book describes post-modernists as turning away from the standardization and loss of individuality supposedly created by modernism. When taken in this context, the ethics of care, care about the individual, makes more sense. In relation to the fun night, a post-modernist would attempt to focus on the individual and attempt to create unique experiences for each child in order to focus on the individual. My station involved the mini-basketball hoop. Since there was only one basketball and only one hoop, my station required a line and taking turns one at a time on part of the children. Such a situation would easily allow one to focus on the individual since I would be focused on which ever kid had the ball. Dialogue ethics brings up an interesting point though since it talks about sustained relationships between speakers. Though I saw some children on and off throughout the fun night, there were others I’m sure I only interacted with for less than 5 minutes before they went to other stations or went home. How individual an experience can be created when a “relationship,” that is more of an acquaintance at most, exists only for a few minutes? What was important though was the focus on the children in a one-on-one, face-to-face manner. Though I may never see any of them again, I made myself present for them during those 2 hours and that in the end is all that mattered.
I don’t think that family fun night would have been such a success without some sort of knowledge in communicating properly. In this case I think that the ethics of care were extremely important for interacting and communicating ethically with their children and parents. When thinking of ethics of care our book describes it as caring and nurturing relationships in a context. I think that interactions among us and the children really showed caring for an individual rather than caring about some principle. I also maintain that utilitarianism had a huge part in the Madison Elementary family fun night since we had to try and achieve the greatest or best outcome. The book shows us that utilitarianism is when an ethical action results in the greatest good for the greatest number of people. To really try and achieve this greater good we had to plan the night out beforehand and account for any possible things that could go wrong. We also had to keep in mind what utilities we had as a group that we could use if something were to not go as planned. Lastly I think that dialogical ethics played a big part in the family fun night. As the book explains ethics are learned through dialogical interactions with other people - - - us working with these kids could virtually change or shape an ethical view point they have. One quote from the book that I feel really explains dialogical ethics is, “Words are meant to conceal as well as to reveal.” I think this quote shows how you have to manipulate your own use of words when talking to different people, especially children. Although I wasn’t able to attend family fun night I feel that I have learned a lot about communication with children through the book, class and my group members. From hearing about their experiences with family fun night I know that it went smoothly and taught us all a lot.
1. Evaluate the terms and theories used
Our group too agreed that ethic of care was the best way to go about this event. With a diverse group of children from various backgrounds, various parenting skills that were used in their up bringing, different ages, sexes etc it was important to go into the event with a wide variety of activities so that there was something for everyone and no child would go ignored. Also, we had to try and cater to all of the children's needs. Some kids are more independent, especially if they are older so they could do the activities alone where others would need assistance. It was important to view each child as an individual and not take negative things personally.
3. Suggest examples that relate to their discussion that come from TV, film, literature and explain why they are good examples;
I'm a big fan of One Tree Hill, a show on the CW for those of you that are unfamiliar, and just last week I think it was there was a fight between Hayley and Nathan's five year old son Jamie at school with one of his classmates who made fun of him for wearing a cape in memory of his older friend who had passed away. Once Hayley had heard about the fight she went to approach the other child's mother in a respectful manner saying that they should try and get their sons to get along and respect each other. You could tell by watching that the other little boy was the snotty way he was because of his mother. She was rude to Hayley, made fun of Jamie and his cape and acted like she was better than everyone. Hayley then got upset and the two of them nearly got into a physical fight. Yes this is a TV show and a dramatized version but I could totally relate to it based on my experiences baby sitting in middle school and working with my little cousins. And I think it is the same type of thing that people experienced at family fun night. Rude parents who do not teach their children manners and are a bad influence. Which therefore just creates more rude people.
My experience at Madison elementary was a little different than I expected. The first unexpected thing was the amount of kids... which in addiiton to the amount of kids-the attitude of the kids which related to the way they interacted with their parents.
That relates to the the term relativism. I was the "fishing pole" lady and dealt with lines of naughty and nice children all night. I was doing what was best for me in completing my duty as well as controlling each child to be respectful to me and their peers. I was doing what was best for me and what was best for the children.
A second term that relates to my experience at Madison Elementary was ethics of care, examining the "care for". I love kids and I love working with kids. I demonstrated that through my interactions with the children. Not only was I at their level when speaking to them and doing activities with them. For a short time I was painting pumpkins and there were a few children that looked scared but really wanted to paint so I mad them comfortable and helped them paint their pumpkin,
The third term that I use to relate my experience at Madison Elementary is the maximization which maximizes good for the most amount of people. Naturally kids love to play games and interact with older people that are role models to them. I used my so called "power" as a role model to maximize the amount of fun I portrayed through fishing and painting pumpkins. I would help those who needed help and be excited for those who weren't too sure as well as getting shy children involved in both activities.
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