Reaction Paper

Reaction Paper
The Observation of groups for understanding of how groups work.

Joseph Custis
Wilmington University

In my group dynamics class I was ask to observe a group in a social setting. I chose to observe my race and ethics class in new castle. The class had an Italian teacher from philly with a very strong personality. Only three males that happened to be black both older but come from three different walks of life. The first is a 34 year old from New York military background and married to a white woman. The second one is a 31-year-old male from Delaware a Historically Black College graduate and has also a military background. The last is a 23 year old from philly and from what I understand with a troubled background. There is five females in this class three of them are white and two black. In a class studying this type of material it seems the females are very uncomfortable speaking about this. So the class is very male dominated which as far as I can observe is the way the females prefer it on this topic. The following paper is set to break down the dynamics of the group setting in this class of far as I can view. The teacher in the class as I described earlier has a very dominant personality. First and foremost the professor takes the role of the Initiator/Contributor with delivering his ideas and logic as the basis for the class. The thing with this is a 60 year white male is going to view race, even more race in America different. The thing I found the most amusing about this situation is this. The professor begins the first class by going in depth with a ten-page syllabus. Single purpose of this is to eliminate the information seeker and opinion seeker trying to strengthen is limited information. So the only true roles the students can really take is Elaborators and give examples and make the professor go more in depth with his points. The black male that is the HBCU graduate plays as a Coordinator and attacks many of the points that he try to make. This leaves the professor many of times back peddling and acting like he is just trying to be an Orienter. This is where the woman manly come into play they chime in at times with Evaluator questions and that leaves the professor nervous. The group of women often plays as Energizer and keep the male tension low and flowing. The ex marine is very good at being the Procedural Technician and bridging at times a gap with the professor and the other black males. The Recorder I can imagine would be everyone in this class. Do to the fact that everyone is changing info many of us are hearing things for the first time. The group also displays many relationship roles at times also this I will explain next. A group in time always displays relationship roles its just apart of the human character. The way the roles came about in this class was no different. In the beginning the professor began as an Encourager rewarding students for speaking they thoughts. Then after he discovered that the male students thought went against his whole agenda, he became an Aggressor and a Blocker. As trying to hold close to the Dominator of the class he used his Rank as a college professor to try and keep us quiet. The problem with this is the women in the class saw him becoming an Evader/Self –Confessor. The women roles which are more natural instinct was they became compromiser and Gatekeeper, which in a sense gives the power, back to the professor. Now the thing that everyone is watching for is what is becoming the Standard Setter do to the fact the book we are learning for this class lacks so much information. That is also big problem for this class the professor is claiming things from this book that at times lack so much truth. This group is pretty much a display of real life does to the fact there is always a dispute over information. My main question was could a person teach about anything that they never lived. Funny to ask that was the main problem in this group setting. That was how I observed this group for the last four weeks. The thing is we learned so much from each other because there is so much passion involved. That is the group that I focused and that is how I have observed it from my understanding.