Reflections: Interpersonal Communication

This article was originally a reflection paper submitted to Sir Wini Dagli, my instructor on DEVC70 (Interpersonal Communication) CDC, UPLB. 

DEVC70 taught me things I’ll never know otherwise. It taught me to appreciate things I have always taken for granted. It made me know more about myself.

I believe that knowing oneself first is very essential to the work as a development communicator. This is because, we need to be better persons – one that can communicate the message efficiently and effectively. With IC, my belief that I was a sanguine, a personality type that would be best described as the "talker" vanished. Now knowing that I’m choleric phlegmatic, or the "doer watcher", I can now do tasks with more ease because I know how to deal with them.

IC also taught me that in order to build good relationship with others, I must be at peace with myself first. After all, how would other person be able to understand me if even I don’t understand myself?

Moreover, my relationships with other people have also gotten better. After the Repertory Grid Analysis, I’ve dealt better with those persons carrying all the constructs I hate. Not that I don’t approach them at all, but I approach them with care, trying to keep an open mind about them, and listening intently to whatever they have to say.

Lastly, I believe IC helped me in my communication in small groups. Nonverbal cues are something all of us know without actually knowing that we ‘know’ it. But with DEVC70 emphasizing those attitudes that most of us do unconsciously, I can understand people better now. After all, message sent is composed of the verbal message accompanied by the non-verbal cues that may further support or contradict it. And adding the previous knowledge I’ve also learned about myself, I can be a better facilitator in these kinds of small group discussions.

Interpersonal Communication is the heart of Development Communication... after DEVC70, I think so too. IC is very much needed, because as Freire said, dialogue is the way for people to reach conscientization and the unfolding of their potentials.

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I believe

This is an activity for DEVC70. Getting a pen and a paper, and with an open-ended statement, "I believe..." write the first 20 things that would come into mind that would finish the sentence. You would be surprised to know the things you believed in, and the priority in which order you remembered them. Here's mine!

I believe...

...in the Lord God our savior.

...that people can do whatever they want as long as they don’t harm themselves or others.

...that women are equal to men. 

...that people can free themselves from sin, if they just sincerely repent.

...that people are hypocrites when they say “sorry” but plans to do the mistake again.

...that animals should be treated properly.

...that sooner or later, our water will run dry if we don’t do something about it.

...that women are more expressive in their emotions than men.

...that flowers and plants grow better if people talk and sing while watering them .

...that a girl will seek a boyfriend at a young age if she will not get that love from her father.

...that jokes are always half-meant.

...in the power of the subconscious mind.

...that people don’t need to study basic higher Mathematics (Trigonometry, Algebra, Calculus etc.), higher Science (Zoology, Botany, Taxonomy etc.) if they won’t enter in those disciplines in the future.

...that the environment plays a big role in the moral, social, cultural and formative development of a child.

...that flirting is a two-way process.

...that not all handsome men are really men.

...that one need not buy signature clothes if they are smart and creative enough to make a treasure out of Ukay-ukay stuffs.

...that education is investment.

...that people are naturally good.

...that trust, once broken, can never be returned to its original state.

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