Reflective Essay: A C In History

I came home from work one day, and found my daughter’s school interim report card on the kitchen table. She usually gets really good grades, earning nothing below a B. However, to my surprise, this time around she came home with a C in History. Now, we had just bought her a new iPhone a few months prior to this incident because, as it turns out, she had made the all A honor roll. But inevitably, as with most teenagers, she ends up dedicating a considerable amount of time on her newly acquired mobile device. Immediately, the first thought that ran through my mind was that she had been distracted by the phone and had gotten careless in her studies. A this point in time, she had been upstairs locked in her bedroom reading a book, so she had not noticed that I had come home. Having already determined the course of action I was going to take, I asked her to come down the stairs so we could talk. I explained to her that her that we were going to confiscate her phone because it was a distraction in her studies. Without any hesitation, she immediately proceeded defend her cause by explaining that she had no idea why her teacher had given her a C in History, claiming she had done all her work. Realizing that I had jumped to an unsubstantiated conclusion, I decided to let her keep the phone until I was able to …show more content…
Perhaps if I had known about the ladder of inference this problem might have been avoided.
The ladder of inference is a decision making tool that describes the thinking process that we go through in order to get from a fact to a decision or action, and can help formulate better conclusions, or challenge the conclusion of others based on true facts and reality without conflict. It is composed of thinking stages that can be represented as rungs on a ladder (Hill, n.d.) Using my conflict example we’ll very briefly explain each one.
• Reality and facts (My daughter got a C in History)
This is the starting