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.
Hey Brian, they meeting about you talking about grades with your teacher is very absorbing. For me personally, I never had a meeting worse as yours. However, I believed that the solution you point out is very helpful to understand. I like the example you point about the misunderstanding between and Deborah about Skloot’s purpose of writing books. I understand at first, the Lacks family thinks she is just another white scholar trying to take advantage of them. However, she is willing to understand the family background more and stand on their side. Misunderstanding can be bothering, what are some ways that we can prevent misunderstanding? At the end, it is a interesting post and have a nice day!
Hi Brian, I’m Brian. I found your point about miscommunication and misunderstanding interesting, it gives it another take about how sometimes it’s the same concept but not entirely the same thing. Sometimes people just communicate things incorrectly, it isn’t just a problem of interpretation especially when they interpret incorrect information correctly. Do you think that when people communicate, they morph information so that it is interpreted in a different way? Do you think that the teacher that you communicated with simply ignored what you were trying to convey or was it actually miscommunication? I do believe the information can not only be misunderstood but also directly ignored, which sometimes makes situations hard to deal with when you convey information clearly. I do you to hear from you soon Brian, as long as I don’t miscommunicate this message.
Hi Brian,
I totally agree that communication is needed to solve misunderstanding. You take an example from the book, and mentioned that the misunderstanding is caused by education differences. I also believe that the gap of education level could really caused people to understand a message differently. People that are lack of education would often combine their knowledge to make up a wrong fact. Why do you think people often lie and make themselves to understand a wrong fact or information ?