From cultural profeciency to interpersonal communication

This week Easten taught his learning session over cultural proficiency, so I thought I would comment on what I thought was good about his session.  I thought he did a wonderful job keeping his energy up and keeping everyone enthused during the class period (I’m sure we’ve all had those classes that just drag on because there is no energy in the room).  The “All My Neighbor’s” activity that he did with us was very fun and a clever way to help us realize the some of the many similarities and differences that exist within our small group of peer mentors.  I thought that the activity was a great way to facilitate talking about differences that arise within groups.  Finally, the worksheet that we worked on in class was a helpful way to identify the things that shape our own personal culture that others may not necessarily share.  To sum this up, I thought Easten’s learning session was a great example of what we should be doing and he set the bar pretty high.

The other thing I thought I would discuss this week was the chapter in the book.  This chapter covered interpersonal communication skills.  The first important thing I took away from the chapter was that, as a peer mentor, it is vital that you do not just “give advice” to our students.  Giving advice does not allow the student to learn from their problems by themselves. 

The chapter goes on to discuss a model the book uses to help train people in the skills of interpersonal relationships and creating the helping interaction.  This model consists of five steps: skills of preparedness, skills of attending, skills of understanding, skills of responding, and skills of resolution.  Since the first skill set was covered in chapter four, this chapter only goes into the middle three skill sets.  The final set will be covered in the chapter we read next week.  Of the ones that were covered I found the skills of responding to be the most interesting.  They focus on how you can ensure that you are not just giving advice to your students.  These skills will become very handy next fall if/when any of the new students come to me for help.