Finding my self... and my voice...

I've got a confession to make, I dread speaking in front of a class and giving my opinion. Funny thing is that I don't mind compering at events or even acting in plays where there is a large audience, and I'm a really chatty person with friends. What really makes me nervous is just to express my opinion. I guess it maybe cos I'm worried about what the rest of the class and the lecturer would think of my point of view. When acting and compering you have a set script and you don't have to worry about others ridiculing your ideas.

Thesedays I've been feeling this even more strongly, cos here the students are always speaking their thoughts out loud, and sometimes even challenge the lecture if they don't agree. I guess the fact that most of the students have over 7 to 8 yrs work experience and I only have 2 yrs, also play a part. So in general I try to sit in the front row so that I pay more attention and cos it's always easier to tell my point of view to the lecture when I'm closer and don't have to yell across the room. (though many do this)

Finally after about 3 weeks today I managed to speak up and contribute to the class so I'm feeling really pleased with myself. Ok it was just a tiny step but an improvement. I'm hoping to be more confident by the time I finish this.

The class that we had today was 'Management Practice' right now this is my favourite course. Here we're mainly learning the soft skills necessary in management like communication and to illustrate certain points the lectures organize little games and though we think we'll see through these the learning is unbelievable. Today the discussion was about assumptions and we project our assumptions to others when we communicate. we were divided into many teams of 8 and each of these groups were further divided into 2 and the 2 parts of each team were physically separated and given certain information and were to obtain the maximum points we could only communicate in messages and a short meeting where we didn't get to show each other the info we got. We realized soon enough that the 2 parts of the team did not have the same info but not a single team realized that the objective of each team was different. It was unbelievable.

One of the main things we learnt today was how when we speak our communication has certain holes and each person who listens to us fills these holes with their own perceptions and assumptions, and often this is how many misunderstandings happen. It is very apparent in this class atmosphere where part of the perceptions are cultural.

Another reason that I enjoy this class is that it's all about reflecting inward and trying to understand my self. I find being on my own and having long walks (now cycle rides) to uni and back to be very useful for this kind of thinking. That's going to be one of my main objectives for the year... To find my self...