Thank You

A common "sign" the children use at my school is "thank you." Those are two very important words to teach our young children as they recognize the kindness and help they receive from those around them. I want to say "thank you" to all of my colleagues from this course as we have learned about collaboration and communication in the Early Childhood field. Thank you for all of the support and feedback you gave me as I learned ways of becoming a better communicator. I hope many of you will be in my next class: Developing People and Leading Teams. I'm really looking forward to the next few classes which focus on administration, management and leadership. Good luck to everyone!

Adjourning

This week I learned about the five stages of team development. These states include forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012). The final stage, adjourning, is when a project or task has come to an end and the members reflect on their experiences together. When I think about a time when I had to leave a group I think back to when I was a summer camp counselor. I spent the entire summer living and working with 25 other college students as we became very close. When our “mission” came to an end it was a strange feeling having to say goodbye now that our goal was accomplished. Before leaving camp, we hugged, prayed together and agreed to stay in touch with each other and made plans to come back to visit periodically. This group was especially hard to leave because we were practically each other’s families since we lived away from our family and college friends for 10 straight weeks.

I imagine the adjuring stage from this program will look quite different than back when I left my role as a camp counselor. When we finish with our master’s degree we will all feel relief, excitement and will probably be proud of our accomplishments. I would like to share contact information with my colleagues so we will be able to continue communicating once the program is over. It’s always very helpful to have multiple contacts in your field. Adjourning is an essential stage of teamwork. These closing rituals are important for continued communication and support.

Resource

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Conflict Management

Knowing positive ways of solving conflicts is essential for any teacher or administrator. In the early childhood field there are a lot of different people who are working together to do what they think is best for the children in the program. Classes are made of up teachers who serve students from all different types of families, homes and backgrounds. There are bound to be some conflicts arise between parents and teachers from time to time.

I have experienced a few conflicts over the years in my role as a teacher. A time that especially stands out was when one parent was very upset that their child continued to come home talking about how another child was mean to her. The child the girl was talking about was a student with special needs. My co-teacher and I were working very closely with the student with special needs and keeping in very close communication with the student’s parents as we worked to get him support from the local school district. While we worked very hard to eliminate problems between this boy and the other students, it was impossible to prevent all of them. It was especially frustrating to me speaking to the parent who was very upset because there was only so much information I could give her about the little boy. I did not feel like I could give her details such as the fact that he had special needs.

From what I’ve been learning in this course I know that when people are upset, they usually want to be sure that they are heard and understood more so than they want the problem to end. I know that I could compromise, making steps to help her feel better. I could let her know that I would put her child in a separate group whenever possible or pay closer attention to the interactions between the two children. I could repeat back what she was telling me so she know she was being heard and letting her know a little bit of the situation from my observations/perspective.

Colleagues- do you have any other ideas for how I would solve a conflict like this in the future? I look forward to reading your examples as well.