Education Situations

Education Situations Observing Nonverbal Communication When observing a group of preschool students between the ages of three to four years old, one common nonverbal communication observed was violent physical contact. When one child wanted a toy that the other child had, this child hit him until he let go of the toy. In another instance, one child said something that was upsetting to another, and the response was getting punched. This nonverbal communication was quite blatant.

The child that was doing the hitting was communicating that he was very upset with the other child and wanted something. In the first instance, the child was communicating that he wanted to have the toy that the other child was playing with. The second child eventually understood this and handed over the toy. In the second instance, the child was communicating that he did not like what the first child had said.

In observing a ten-year-old lower primary child, his nonverbal communication was a little more subtle than the younger children. In this instance, the boy was fidgeting in class. Apparently, this child reads at a college-level, but in class the students had been assigned to read a very simplistic reading primer. The child was bored. Eventually, his teacher did notice this nonverbal communication, and she did understand that it meant he was bored.

Unfortunately, instead of offering a more challenging assignment to the child, she told him he had to learn to be patient while other people tried to catch up with him. In a thirteen-year-old girl, the nonverbal communication observed was facial expressions. She was having a conversation with a friend in a group setting. Her friend began to talk about a personal situation, and the observed girl widened her eyes, pinched her lips, and very slightly shook her head. She did not, apparently, want her friend to bring.