Culture and Society Reflection II

Homelessness throughout Auckland has increased and sadly will continue to grow if no further actions are made. Because Auckland is New Zealand’s most diverse state the population is rising just as well internationally and domestically. In class it was tough at times because of course everyone has their own opinion. In respects to the diversity of our tutorial class I was very open minded to all the perspectives that were revealed. An experience that I want to discuss in this overall reflection is the process in prep for group presentations where we chose to take on the topic of homelessness. I came across many challenges including an incident with one of the group members.

First of all, class was always full of discussions and disagreements which most of the time I took into consideration. But when it came to our group work I found myself constantly being frustrated or wound up. There were moments where someone would go off topic or approach the debate narrow mindedly. I don’t know if I was the only one who was feeling this way but I was definitely good at hiding my emotions. Usually I am the type of person who will respect another’s opinion but it was during this period my patience was wearing thin. If I were to base theory on the regular meetings we had Grice’s maxims would’ve been violated. For instance, the Maxim of Quantity was not persistent throughout our discussions because of the over packed information. According to Grice (2012) it is where one gives all the information needed and no more than that. At this point I was very sceptical because we each had only 2-3 minutes to talk about our subtopics. I found this Maxim difficult to follow because as much I wanted to I had to keep it short and sweet while covering all points.

The Maxim of Relevance was also violated in this process because of the continuous irrelevancy. There was one member who would keep making jokes or talk about something completely different to our assignment. “The maxim of relation is where one tries to be relevant, and says things that are pertinent to the discussion,” (Grice, n.d). This is where we lost most of our time and with only an hour available in the study room I felt annoyed that we weren’t getting any work done. I didn’t know how to approach my other group members to stop wasting time so we could start putting our presentation together. I didn’t think that I would’ve been the serious one because from previous group assignments we were always focused. I felt like I had no choice but to take on the ‘leader role’ because we weren’t carrying on as a team. We only had a couple of weeks left before the presentation day and so far I was the only one who was concerned to discuss our PowerPoint.

Two weeks had passed and the other group members finally decided to set up a meeting so I was more than willing to book a room. I have to admit it was a little bit awkward for the first ten to fifteen minutes because we hadn’t seen each other in a while outside of class. Looking back on the experience I am doubtful to how I handled the situation. Instead of being stubborn and determined to prove a point I could’ve tried to view things through their shoes. In my group there is five of us in total and we are all from different cultures. Even though we didn’t bond well as a group, Rogers theory of personality proves the reasons of our behaviours. We all have different personalities therefore leading to the ways we saw and did things.

In relation to Rogers theory of a “fully functioning person” I was the opposite of being an open minded individual (Explorable, n.d). The humanistic perspective personality focuses on the psychological growth, free will, personal awareness, and a positive outlook on human nature (Rogers and Moslow). According to Freud (Freud, n.d) the mind is composed of three sections, the unconscious, the preconscious, and the conscious. Because we are easily influenced by people I see how I was slowly becoming someone I constantly tell myself I wouldn’t be. For the Photo board assignment, I explained that “I value the importance of friendship and keep an open mind when facing new opportunities,” which for a certain period I had gone against.

Meeting before our presentation was not the greatest and very slow as usual. I got really upset at one point because Katarina said something so insensitive, “those who are homeless can only blame themselves.” This definitely triggered my anger because I personally knew someone who went through homelessness, and I know that she had no other choice. I disliked how blunt she was about the topic without thinking deeper about it. This did not change my views about anything because from doing my research I understood that there are many causes to such a common issue. I came across things that I didn’t even stop to think about as one of the main causes like mental health illnesses. Although Katarina made an unpleasant comment I have to respect that she has her own opinion and I have mine.

When comparing myself to my other group members I noticed that the difference of cultures were great influences of our opinions. Coming from a Tongan background I am highly respectable towards another person’s opinion, even if I don’t entirely agree with it. Whereas Harry and Katarina were very quick in getting their voices heard making it seem like their views were more right than the Samoan girls and mine. Bennett’s Development Model of Cultural sensitivity describes the different stages of being “Ethnocentric” or “Ethnorelative”. Personally I see myself at the Acceptance stage of Bennett’s model which basically means that I am curious and respectful toward cultural difference (Bennett, n.d)

In saying so, I appreciate the time that I have spent throughout Culture and Society. There were times I wasn’t so vigilant towards the different perspectives and personalities of others. I didn’t think the class would be so full of confident voices and opinions which I don’t see as a bad thing anymore. From experiences like the class discussions and group presentations I understand that even if we don’t see eye to eye it doesn’t hurt to view matters from a different angle. I believe that when going through tough situations and miscommunication it definitely broadens the mind into finding more ways to figuring it out. I’ve learnt more about Homelessness, the causes and impacts upon them as well as the community. You may get pulled down at times and when it seems like there is no way out it’s up to us to be that helping hand. I have been pushed to my limits in and out of this class and it’s up to me to decide what to do with the knowledge I’ve learnt.

Reference list:

Milton, B. (n.d). Bennett’s Development of Cultural Insensitivity (DMIS) Retrieved October 25, 2016 from http://www.messiah.edu/download/downloads/id/922/Milton_J._Bennett_s_Developmental_Model_of_Intercultural_Sensitivity.pdf

Communication Theory. (April 12, 2012). Grices Maxims. Retrieved October 19, 2016 from http://hancommtheory.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/grices-maxim.html 

Explorable. (n.d). Humanistic perspective and personality. Retrieved October 20, 2016 from https://explorable.com/humanistic-perspective-and-personality