~Tuesday~ I love the Johari Window, a tool used to illustrate and improve self-awareness. It relies on disclosure from you, and feedback from the people around you.
Here's a description of it, complete with examples:
What you and others know about you. Example: You have brown eyes. |
What you don't know about yourself but others do know about you. Example: You have spinach in your teeth. |
What you know about yourself but others don't know about you. Example: You see dead people. |
What you don't know about yourself and what other people don't know about you. Example: You are going to die on your 75th birthday. |
I have contemplated the Johari Window at various times in my life, but what's bringing it to mind tonight is something I learned at a lecture I attended at NC State this evening, called, Voting Rights & Wrongs: A History of Franchise.
And what was particularly interesting to me about what I learned tonight is that it was in that ever-elusive fourth quadrant, the "Unknown" quadrant, also known as the "Things-you-don't-know-you-don't-know" quadrant.
And specifically what I learned is that I didn't know that I didn't know what the word suffrage meant. I have heard of suffragette, of course, and have always thought it referred to women fighting for the right to vote, which is correct.
However, the word suffrage—first of all, I thought it was an adjective and not a noun, and second of all, I thought it referred to the actual suffering experienced doing something, so in this case the suffering of women trying to earn the right to vote.
Now I have to wonder how many times in my life I've used it incorrectly that people noticed, but just didn't correct my usage. Which if they did, of course, would put it in the second, "Blind," quadrant, not the fourth, "Unknown," quadrant.