Comments on: Here’s Lookin At You, Kid…or Not.

By: Hillary

Hillary — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:58:50 +0000

@Szidonia: About this question of handshakes– I recently HUGGED someone at the end of a meeting when I clearly probably shouldn’t have, but I was possessed by some weird HUG demon and then, after, mortified. I felt like the handshake was too formal for the occasion, but, well, the hug wasn’t right either.

And you’re right that these questions are very much cultural; when I looked back at your older post on this, you mentioned something that was perhaps lurking behind mine– that vague frustration at not being able to take each student on an individual level, in terms of their own challenges & approaches & obstacles in this & other arenas.

@James: Too much eye contact = creepy; I totally concur.

By: James Hoff

James Hoff — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:47:28 +0000

I know eye contact is important, but really, this woman’s non-stop eye contact is actually really disconcerting and kind of creepy. That much eye contact doesn’t say “I have knowledge” or “I am confident;” it says “I’m a psycopath.” In my experience this much eye contact is the tell-tale mark of someone trying way too hard.

But alas, cultures, and even classes within cultures, differ on this point considerably. I personally like enough eye contact to know the person is listening, but not so much that I feel like I am being scrutinized or examined.

James.

By: Popular People » Blog Archive » Here’S Lookin At You, Kid…Or Not. At Cac.Ophony.Org

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:10:19 +0000

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By: Szidonia

Szidonia — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:37:40 +0000

Yes, I agree, it is a bold and beautiful thing to “give really great eye” (Go, Hillary!), but since I have found out that whenever we maintain eye-contact, we are actually focusing on one of the other’s eyes only, I unwittingly catch myself trying to figure out if I am becoming too obvious in doing so. Of course, I become uncomfortable and in need to look away immediately! This, luckily for me, tends to happen more in one-to-one communication contexts, less often in a situation when I am addressing a group like a class.
I do think that learning to use eye-contact, maintain it and interrupt it in a strategic way, has a great deal of importance in giving you the sense of authority you need as a presenter. I just cannot escape feeling how cultural this idea is, however, but I blogged about this already, and no need for repeating myself.
Another thing I am very aware of in any “communication situation,” is a handshake, though we do not train our students in shaking hands. Nevertheless, in my experience, at least, surprisingly few people have a strong handshake which, to me, is a primary (though culturally instilled! sign of confidence. Even fewer women shake my hand with a good deal of strength, but I do not mean to veer the conversation away, again, to the unstable grounds of gender differences….
Thank you, Hillary, for a great post and a great tip for my upcoming BPL rehearsal! I will look my students in the eye, and I will feel entitled to interrupt their presentation if I notice that they suffer from the sickness of the “wandering eye”! (They should keep that for their English lit classes – just kidding, of course, but a deal of bewildered wa/ondering I find most productive when I “teach” a literary interpretation of, let’s say, T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock.)