Case Study reflection

this isn't about the content of case study, but what needs to be done in presenting.


I'm now sophomore, who survived Fr. ELP, but I felt that I still have a lot of problems in presenting in English.
I first thought 10 mins were too long and 5 is enough, but I was totally wrong. (I was the last speaker and had only 5 mins, but I could barely finish by speaking very fast)


To be honest, It was hard to catch what others of my group was speaking.
It was good to know, in advance, what is important to be understood.
In a worst case, I couldn't catch the whole situation (I should have stopped and asked), then I could only have really vague idea of the whole case study.

What kind of company is this case study about?
Who is the main character and what status is he/she in?
What happened?

I tried to emphasize and repeat these things as premises of understanding the whole case study.



Also, the thing I must be serious about is that I'm forgetting to use pure English.
That is, I haven't spoken to non-Japanese who cannot speak Japanese, so I'm starting to have a bad habit to use English and Japanese at the same time, like
e-tto....
ano-..
a-...nani

all of which mean "like...", so I need to be sensible not to speak any Japanese when I speak in English class.
I'll try that on the final presentation :)



by the way......
I wonder why nobody questioned Ken's suggestion, to make "case study reflection" and "final presentation reflection" optional...

If they weren't optional but one choice of requirements, we didn't have to read chp.16 but just listen to final presentation and reflect to some that were interesting to us.
but now we have no choice but to read chp.16 ^^;
I wanted to FINISH the book and need to be pushed, so that was good for me though.
(but I found chp.17...)

Class flag activitity

I've seen my typical character in this activity.

As soon as I received the SECRET instruction "do whatever you can so that you will be chosen as the leader," I was was convinced that everybody had the same one, so that everyone would think of how to be chosen as a leader, with active discussion.

well, that was my big misunderstanding though lol

what I did as I knew (actually not) it was to compromise.
I predicted conflict and avoided it.

and happily, because there were only two who got the same instruction to be chosen as a leader, we could choose Ayaka as a leader kind of peacefully.


but I think I underrated leadership and solution of conflicts and a competitions.
contradictory opinions, disrupters, ... that group activity was more realistic than I expected.


but as I think of the case I kept insisting to be a leader, what was the "constructive persuasion" to her since she was also instructed to be insistent.

Week 7 Writing Assignment

As I read risk, I thought that it wasn't clear if I should take risk or not and knew that "risk" is not and easy word to immediately determine to take or not.

As the strategy says, to "be willing" to take a risk is really important. that's my take-away from this chapter.

really, "will" changes our actions, not only mentally but physically.

this is a bit different example, but I have some to show that will changes our motivations, even abilities.

when I had short short sprint (50m or 100m run) , I was often told "that (50m line)'s not the goal, run to the further line", that was lined 5m further.

also as a similar example, in school choir (chorus group), there were songs that required a looooong breath, and I was also told not to finish on the actual finishing timing, but to "will" to keep my voice longer than that.

this is not only about "risk", but I'm convinced that "will" has the power to change situations.

it's a dangerous choice to take the risk or not, but however the result appears, I think the fact that "we changed the situation" is a great profit from the risky situation.

Money does not necessarily work as a reward for better work

I really agree to this.
moreover, I wanna say

nothing from other people work as a reward better than the interest of own.

One source for this is the 20% rule of google.

One more, there exists "discounting principals"（割引原理）, which I learnt in Educational Psychology.
when there are two purposes to do a certain job and when one is focused, the other get less important.

For example, let's say we give students a puzzle and let them solve it.
It's fun for them and they enjoy it to solve the puzzle.
For next time, we give them one rule, that is, we give them some money if they solve the puzzle.

Then, surprisingly, the puzzle is not fun for them anymore.

For another example, the main reasons of getting a good grade in school are said to be "ability" and "effort".
When you say "I really worked hard for the test and got full max!", then many people would think "you weren't talented for study, so you needed to work hard."
I mean, if you emphasize "effort", your "ability" is regarded less.
and this is the main reason why many students turn defiant before test, otherwise, in case they couldn't get good grade regardless of their effort, then it shows that they don't have the ability.


Actually, even though I believe Ken introduces us great books and I wanna read all of them, once I regard it as a "reading assignment", I feel like I don't wanna read them.
So it's really helpful for me that Ken says that we just share ideas in the final project.

I wanna ENJOY the final project without any pressure :)

Week 6 Writing Assignment

I don't have an experience of a big conflict, since I am a "teddybear". :(
so I can only write about general things with small examples.


As I read and though about how to solve a conflict, this seemed to be like NEGOTIATION　skills.
I mean, in a conflict, there are (at least) two opinions that do not (seem to ) match.
then we need to stop clinging to one side, thinking objectively "what's my interest?"

otherwise the consequence is likely to be "win-lose", that is, somebody need to be a sacrifice of a certain group.



by the way, as I read the part "avoid needless power struggles," I wondered, "Are there any needed power struggles?"
when we have power struggles, we are often emotional.
because I believe so, if a conflict seemed to be about to occur, I "[give] him time to come to hsi senses" as the author says.
(I don't get violent when I'm emotional, but just get silent)


I was often a teddybear, so I haven't experienced big conflicts, but I believe that the first action I always took was right: to understand.
As I've written to the previous blog, nothing starts before understanding if we're doing something with people.


hmmmmm I don't have much write about conflict><

Seek first to understand

wooow I got a great take-away!

before hearing this from Ken and even finding this quotation, I thought of  the same thing when thinking about the Expedition Log 2. of chp. 7 (pg.112):

What changes can you make that will allow anger to be dealt with productively and in small doses?

I recalled here when seeing this Q:

"the first step in promoting health conflict is to understand..."(pg. 104, 11th line from the bottom)


I totally agree to this idea.
Understanding and agreeing are different.
Even if I can't totally agree to an idea at all, I must show understanding first.

I think this approach is close to what we've learnt in negotiation.

by the way, the bible says something similar too.

"be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry" (James 1:19)

I don't wanna force any spiritual stuff or whatever like that to nonchristians (I don't really understand those stuff well in the first place lol), but I think this is a good "proverb" for all people :)

Week 5 Writing Assignment

I've been unable to write extra blogs...though I have many more thing to.

I climbed Mt. Jimba (between Tokyo and Kanagawa pref.) with 14 children and some adults, as a leader of those children, so I'm gonna write about it as I respond to chp.5.

I'm a counselor (teacher) of Pathfinder Club, a church Boy/Girl Scout, and I was a leader of the 14 children as we climbed up Mt. Jimba, for the first time.

Of course, children causes many many unpredictable problems.
So what I tried to emphasize the most was to tell them to go slowly, never walking fast.

I used to think that the team message is basically useless, just the words all of which all of the team members know such as "be careful, don't get hurt."
But as I had to select words as the leader, I realized that team messages are the extract of what the most important thing is for the whole group.
(just like when Ken introduces some books.)

Of course, the children climbed with very diverse paces.
I was stopping the boy in the lead all the time (though I let him start in the back at first lol).
Keeping having a contact with another counselor in the back with transceiver, I was struggling to stop him all the time, saying "You're not walking alone. You walk fast (and that's a great thing), so you need to think of slow people when you are in a team" over and over again.

It was lucky that he was the only boy who tried to go fast.
but I had difficulty to think of the whole team as I focused on the boy.(the counselor helped me a lot)

I had many many other lessons through the hiking yesterday. To focus on "team message", I had those lessons.
I came to know that what the leader says in front of the whole team is often obvious, but never trivial.

Week 4 Writing Assignment

I'm not sure about the writing assignment for week 4, I only need to read and not necessarily write anything?

well, but again, I'm happy to know an important thing in this chapter "stamina", so I'll write some.

As Ken says in his blog, though stamina is basically a mental matter I guess, physical health really matters.

Actually, my aim for this term (and maybe this year) is 

EAT　WELL AND SLEEP WELL

seriously.

Last year, I spent too many time to sleep for studying and didn't really care about what to eat.

As a result, of course, I was sleepy or sleeping all the time in every lecture.

I have to always recognize what is the most important thing.

There's my favorite term in Japanese,本末転倒(Hommatsu tentou), "wag the dog."

I like this word because it's really a silly thing, it's always useful for sarcasm lol

And, I have to remember that I must not do this silly stuff.

it's written "keep a journal" as one of the solutions to deal with stamina, I really thank Ken to sort of force us to do this.

writing enables me to record my thoughts.

Also, I've been using blogger to analyze my thoughts for half a year, and that really helps me "provide relief."

Unless I write some, I often think the same thing over and over again, so at least for me, journal is a time-saving action too :)