Misunderstanding is simply where communication fails to achieve its purpose. In my life, misunderstanding of someone and the misunderstanding of me happens a lot. Most of the time it happens because of me, and I know this because I know from what came out of me is hard to understand. Misunderstanding is a misconception of the meaning of the message, which, in my opinion is much better than miscommunication. To understand a message from another, communication has to happen. By not communicating, or miscommunication, the message is basically not being sent.
In my personal experience, a simple example of misunderstanding that happened in school was that an appointed meeting with a teacher to discuss how my grade for the course can improve went totally wrong. Originally, my goal of the meeting was to discuss an improvement for my assignments in the future, but the meeting became a lecture about why I’m having the meeting. The main problem was not misunderstanding, but miscommunication. Everytime when I had something to ask, the teacher told me to listen first, and told me he/she has got an answer for me. The concept that was misunderstood was the question (message) I had that was never sent, and the teacher thought he/she had it. I soon realized that this was no discussion nor meeting, but a lecture. Therefore, the true problem is the communication that never happened.
Communication by d7o0om s via flickr / All rights reserved
In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, misunderstanding is caused by language, education differences, and race barriers. The communication between Henrietta and her cells and Doctor Gey never happened and misunderstanding occurred to Deborah about Skloot’s purpose of writing books. HeLa cells had made the world terrified of cancer. Moreover, this resulted of scientists’s selfishness and nervousness all show up at once.
In my opinion, misunderstanding could be resolved simply be a clarification or a double-check about the concept being transferred and received. The hard part for me, and probably most of the misunderstanding is the miscommunication, because with communication, lots of concepts could get straighten up.
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Bibliography:
- Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Broadway Books, 2010. Print.