Overall impression of LMS

My overall impression of LMS is not too bad because I did learn quite a number of things which I have never ever thought about. Many people say that LMS is a very common sense subject; however, if you think of it, it does require much thinking. Of course the bulk of it is quite common sense, but that is because we have experience the many things that are being taught and that is why we think it is common sense. There is one thing that really strikes me which changed my perception of LMS is that, many things taught are actually part of our human psychology. Take for example, anger management. Do you really think it is so easy to manage our anger? This is kind of a rhetorical question because the answer is obvious, it is no! If it were so easy, would there be a need for people to go for anger management courses? If it were so easy, would there be people losing their tempers over small matters? If it were so easy, would there be fights over staring incidents? This list can go on and on but there isn’t a need to, it is obvious that it is difficult to manage one’s anger. Therefore, I think that LMS is really not as common sense as it seems to be because under the bulk of what is common sense, it is really complex in nature. This can be illustrated with a human hand. On the surface, the skin looks very simple with just a few hairs sticking out of its surface; however, beneath the skin is a whole lot of complex systems like the circulatory system. Thus, I feel that in actual fact, LMS is not that simple after all. I think my LMS teacher, miss esther chin, is really nice too! Though I skipped two lessons (both with valid reasons) she did not scold me or yell at me, instead she was patient and understanding. In a nutshell, I want to say that I enjoyed myself at LMS lessons, though there were ups and downs where I did not really feel like going for the lessons, but overall, it was good!

Listening!

Hello everyone again! Today’s topic is on listening! Actually this topic should be the 3rd post but oh wells! I think it does not really matter right? At least I posted this entry! Anyway, what is meant by listening? Dictionary.com defines it as “To pay attention” I am sure this definition is straight forward and easy to understand. Well, to me, I think that listening is to hear, understand and internalize which is similar to paying attention. Let me ask you a question. Do you actually listen during lectures or tutorials or do you just hear the teacher teaching. I am sure for many of you out there; this is a rhetorical question, that is, a question which reflects the unstated answer. I am sure many people out there don’t actually listen very much; all they do is to hear. Let’s picture this, a lecturer is teaching and his words appear to be sound waves entering one side of your ear and leaving the other side. How many of you can relate to this? I am sure many of you can. This example can show that many actually hear and not listen as they do not internalize what they are hearing. So why does this happen? Or why do many just hear but not listen? There are many reasons which can range from one’s attitude (i.e. he may think that the lecture is boring and hence feel that there is no point in listening) to one’s interest (i.e. he may feel that since this is not his interest, there is no point in listening) Sometimes, it could be one’s beliefs too. For example, if one is with a group of guys who are having really “sick in the mind” conversations, and one is a person whose belief is to not be sick in the mind, then I am sure one would not listen to the conversation; instead he would just hear what they say and not internalize it. There are many filters to listening and these are only a few. There are also barriers to listening and these barriers can be classified into two groups, the external barriers and the internal barriers. External barriers, as the name suggests, are things where you can see, feel, hear or touch which distracts you. For example, a speaker might be wearing a very funny outfit and these would distract one from listening or paying attention. Internal barriers are things inside of us that affect us. For example, our emotions are internal barriers. One would ask, how do our emotions hinder us from listening? Let me paint this picture for you. If a speaker were to talk about a sensitive issue, let’s say a topic which is obviously, belittling your race or religion, how would you feel? You would definitely feel angry or upset and this would in turn switch of our brains, so to speak, and hence stop us from listening. How then should we get rid of these barriers or instill effective listening into our lives? The first and most obvious thing we should do is to have the right attitude about things. We should have the attitude of “I should listen as I am here to learn new things” or “I should listen to the safety instructions, if not I might jeopardize my life” With the right attitudes, I am very sure we would start listening. Secondly, we must be open-minded where we should not ignore the ideas of others; instead, we should listen to what others have to say which might even be better ideas as compared to your own idea. Many a times, we feel that our ideas are superior to ideas of our peers and this sense of complacency would lead to us not listening to our friends ideas. Why do I say this? That’s because I use to experience this myself and I really think that this isn’t right. This is because we all come from different backgrounds and hence have different experiences which results in different opinions; therefore, I feel that each individual’s ideas is important and that it might even be better than my own idea. Lastly, we should resist barriers to listening. However, not all barriers can be resisted; hence I would say that we should at least minimize these barriers. For example, it is hard to resist the barrier of emotions to sensitive issues, but we can resist barriers like not getting distracted by our external surroundings, like the speakers shirt and instead we should concentrate and listen to what he says.
Therefore in conclusion, we should all listen and not just hear as listening is a very important skill in our lives.

managing conflict

Hello everyone! Today’s topic is managing conflict! So let us start by defining what conflict is. According to dictionary.com, conflict is “to come into collision or disagreement; be contradictory, at variance, or in opposition; clash” Does this meaning still appear complex to you? Well, let’s give you a very practical example.
“Hey John! I think it should be like this!” “No Rasmus! I think it should be this” John retorted. As you can see, we are in conflict, we disagree with each others views and we come into collision, so to speak. Another way of understanding what conflict is, is to know how it arises. As you can also see from the above example, conflicts arises when two or more parties have different views, opinions, needs, interests, values or goals. What then does in involve? Also, looking from the example above, it involves disagreements, disputes or quarrels.
What then is management? I have defined that in my 2nd post on anger management. Briefly, management would be to handle, control, manage or direct. For this situation of conflict management, it would be to control and handle the conflict and try to find ways to resolve the conflict.

There are different types of conflict and they are relationship conflicts, data conflicts, interest-based conflicts, structural conflicts and value-based conflicts. Personally, I go through more of relationship conflicts especially with close friends. However, isn’t it intriguing why we experience more conflicts with close friends rather than people we do not know that well? Shouldn’t our closer friends be able to understand us better which in turn should result in lesser disagreements or contradictory views? Well, I am sure this question can be answered by almost anyone. Indeed our closer friends should be able to understand us better and therefore we shouldn’t have contrasting views, however it is because of the closeness of friends that we have high expectations of one another and hence we end up having conflicts as there would be a lot of miscommunication, like for example, one would expect his close friend to know what he wants when he shows a facial expression but that close friend might not notice and hence does not respond to his needs resulting in miscommunication hence resulting in conflict. This happens very often to me and hence this is my opinion of relationship conflicts.

How then should we manage our conflicts? There are four ways of conflict management and they are to avoid, to accommodate, to compromise and to collaborate. Many a times, I would just avoid the conflict, however, I do think that avoiding isn’t the answer because the underlying problem is still not solve and hence something small might trigger that same conflict again. In my opinion, I think the best way to resolve a conflict is to go to the root of the problem and tackle it. This saves a lot of time instead of arguing out one’s cause. In addition, before we accommodate compromise or collaborate (in my view, I think that these are secondary actions) we should first look at the main problem which resulted in the conflict. However, all these are just my opinion. Let us look at the Kare Anderson’s model for conflict Resolution. There are basically four steps involve. Firstly you should tell yourself your main needs. Secondly, you should reach out to find the other person’s main needs, thirdly, you must listen to the other person and lastly you should propose a solution that supports their main needs and yours as well. Therefore the next time you have a conflict with someone, try out the Kare Anderson’s model and see if it works.

Interestingly, there are subtle constructive outcomes of conflict. Many people always feel that conflicts aren’t good and that we shouldn’t have conflicts at all, but guess what; there are constructive outcomes of conflict! Firstly, it improves our self awareness because when we seek to find our main needs, we become more aware of our personality, character, and the way we act and so on. Secondly, it can strengthen relationships. There is this phrase which goes “conflict can either break or make” and for some instances, they make! That is to strengthen relationships. They do so as they deepen and enrich a relationship by making us more aware of problems in our relationships that need to be solved. Since resolving a conflict requires both parties to understand each other, it would enhance mutual understanding between parties. Lastly, it promotes group cohesion. Believe it or not, when a person enters into a conflict with another group, its cohesiveness increases and its sense of identity becomes clearer. Therefore, it promotes the social development of group members by promoting higher levels of cognition and moral reasoning.

In a nutshell, I would like to say that conflict is not that all bad, it might even be good; however, I feel that each and every one of us must know how to manage our conflicts or things can end up really bad, like ties of friendships being severed and many more.

By the way, some definitions and points that I said are taken from my managing conflict notes.