Team Development

I worked with a team of 3 other teachers for 3-4 years.  This group was extremely high-performing because we were all working with each other and for the good of the team, which in turn benefited the students.  All people showcased their own strengths for different aspects, such as developing creative ideas to teach a topic, coming up with an interesting writing assignment, or a new strategy for teaching math.  There was not one defined leader, but each person stepped up at different times.  

This past school year, I had to leave the team, which had really become my family.  It was very difficult for me to leave the team.  I even experienced slight depression symptoms because of the drastic change and withdraw from my support system.  I believe this occurred because I did not have the same connection with my new team. As the year has progressed however, I do feel that my new team is also a support system, which is positive.  We continue to maintain a friendship and share resources and ideas with each other, even though we are no longer considered a team.  

I imagine that the adjourning stage from this master's program will be a celebratory time because we all understand how hard each of us have worked to complete the program.  We have benefited from each other's knowledge and will use that to improve our own professional growth.

Adjourning is essential because all projects and groups come to an end.  This is often the main goal of forming a group in the first place, to accomplish a task.  Once the task is complete, the group has to either stay together and set a new goal or take what they have learned and form a new group. 

Conflict in Relationships

I tend to avoid conflict whenever possible, so luckily I am not currently experiencing any conflict.  I have experienced much conflict and many disagreements in the past, specifically regarding the relationship I have with my husband.

My husband is a wonderful man who not only took on the responsibilities of being a husband, but also took on the responsibilities of being a father at the same time.  When we got married, my daughter, from a previous relationship, was 3 years old.  She was certainly a mommy's little angel because it had only been me and her for nearly her entire life, but my husband didn't always view her in the same way. 

This conflict around my husband's role in my daughter's life did cause many disagreements in our relationship.  One issue we struggled with was discipline and his role in this.  I did all of the discipline for her, but many times did not follow through with consequences or let her get away with things because I didn't want to hurt her feelings or upset her.  He on the other hand, wanted to set strict boundaries and rules and when he did enforce consequences, I felt like he was targeting her and upsetting her.  I would swoop in to comfort her when he wasn't looking.  This caused a great deal of conflict because my husband felt that he wasn't being supported in his relationship with our daughter and we really struggled finding his place there. 

Two strategies I learned about this week that helped us resolve our conflict were compassionate communication and compromise. The NVC website explains that compassionate communication or nonviolent communication focuses on communicating in a compassionate manner in order to meet everyone's needs (http://www.cnvc.org).  Although we did disagree about some things, we both had only the best intentions in mind in regards to my daughter.  We both wanted what was best for her.  When communicating about this issue, we both expressed our concerns and we were both considerate regarding the other's position.  My husband understood that it was difficult for me emotionally to see my daughter upset, while I understood the difficulties he faced with trying to find his role as her step-father.  Ultimately, we compromised on most issues.  He allowed me to be the lead when dealing with discipline issues and we supported each other and worked as a team when problems with our daughter would arise.  I made sure to begin following through with consequences and my husband was less aggressive with these consequences.  

Utilizing cooperative strategies which benefited our family relationship and served mutual goals helped us to create a loving and nurturing environment for our daughter (O'Hair and Wiemann, 2012).  Although we still have an occasional disagreement or conflict about what is right for our daughter, we rely on compassionate communication and compromise to attack the issue.    

References

 O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real Communication . Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.

The Center for Nonviolent Communication. (n.d.). NVC Model & NVC Concept. The

center for Nonviolent communication. Retrieved from http://www.cnvc.org/

Who am I as a Communicator?

I found this week's application assignment to be very informative and really did give me some information about how I perceive myself as well as how I am perceived by others.  I had my husband and one of my colleagues evaluate my communication skills.  Both of them gave me scores very similar to my own, with minor differences.

I was most surprised that I scored in the moderate range for verbal aggressiveness.  I am quiet, shy and tend to avoid conflict if possible.  I was certain that I would score in the low range for verbal aggressiveness.  When my husband evaluated me, I scored in the mild range, but it was very close to moderate.  When evaluated by my colleague, I scored in the moderate range as well.  This was different than I perceived myself or even how I believed others perceived me.  After considering this rating, I realized that I don't like conflict, however if I feel the need to express a thought or opinion about something, I will do it.  I guess that it is what I say when I do speak, not my apprehensiveness about speaking that led me to score in the moderate range.  

I also learned that I have a people-oriented listening style and that I have situational communication anxiety.  I agree with this assessment of myself and feel that the description of these two attributes are accurate.  Being people-oriented will help me build relationships with the children and families with whom I work as well as with family members and friends.  One down side to this, however is that I may be too trusting of others and could possibly be taken advantage of (Rubin, Rubin, Graham, Perse, & Seibold, 2009).  I have always been reluctant to speak in front of others or even have conversations with those whom I'm not comfortable.  Being labled as having "situational" communication anxiety is accurate.  Who I am communicating with affects my comfort level and I do tend to avoid these situations.  I seek out opportunities to challenge myself to become more comfortable with these situations.  I volunteer to deliver staff development as well as interact with people I don't know very well when my husband and I are out at social events.  

The information provided by these assessments will help me to become a better communicator and I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn about my perceptions as well as the perceptions of others.  

Resources

Rubin, R. B., Rubin, A. M., Graham, E. E., Perse, E. M., & Seibold, D. R. (Eds.)

       (2009). Communication research measures II: A sourcebook. New York: 

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Communication and Culture

As a child, I grew up in a very rural community which had little diversity.  It wasn't until I reached college that I was exposed to different cultures and a world of diversity I had never experienced.  As an adult, I wanted to live in an area where my children wouldn't be sheltered from the world around them.  I moved to a suburb a few minutes outside of Baltimore, Maryland, which is bursting with cultural diversity.

I tend to be a bit of an introvert and do not find communicating with anyone unfamiliar to be an easy task.  When I am communicating with people from different groups and cultures, I do sometimes get a sense of uneasiness.  I’m not sure if this comes from my feelings of feeling uncomfortable with conversing with others, whom I’m not completely comfortable with, in general or because the people are from a different group or culture.  I think I communicate differently by being more aware of what I am saying; I am hoping that I don’t say anything that might be offensive to someone unintentionally. 

To communicate more effectively, I could use Beebee, Beebee, and Redmond’s (2010) idea of self talk; thinking through what I am going to say before saying it.  I can also apply Bennett’s idea of the Platinum Rule; thinking about how others want to be treated (Beebee, Beebee, and Redmond, 2010).  Finally, I think I could spend time asking questions and trying to understand other cultures and groups in an effort to feel more comfortable communicating. 

I hope that my own children will not experience these feelings of uneasiness when communicating with others of different groups or cultures because they have been around so much diversity while growing up.

 References

Beebe, S. A., Beebe, S. J., & Redmond, M. V. (2011). Interpersonal communication:

 Relating to others (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication

For this assignment, I watched ABC’s Revenge.  I had never watched the show before and actually had a difficult time understanding just what was going on, even after I had turned to volume on.  There were many characters in the episode, who I later found out, when I watched with volume, were all connected in some way or another.  When watching the episode on mute, I didn't

 realize the way that the characters were intertwined. 

            One specific example I watched was a man and a woman walking through the street.  They were holding hands and he gave her his jacket.  I automatically assumed by their behavior and non verbal communication that they were a couple.  After watching with volume, I found out that they were actually brother and sister.  Later, they walked into what looked like a campaign room up to an older man.  I assumed that the man was the girl’s father, but they did not express signs of contentment with each other.  They stood a distance apart and did not embrace.  This led me to believe that they may have had an argument.  This was not addressed in the episode, perhaps there was a conflict in a previous episode. 

             After watching this show without the volume, I realized that some parts of the plot were easy to decipher.  For example, there was a scene between a man and woman, who I assumed were husband and wife, where she behaved very coldly toward him.  She did not greet him when he entered the house and she sat down at the table and drank and ate as if he weren't there.  I could tell by the body language of the woman that she was not particularly fond of him.  When I turned the volume on, I was correct; in fact she had just helped another character spy on her husband. 

            Some parts of the plot were difficult to decipher, such as the relationship between the characters.  I didn't learn how they were connected until I watched the episode with volume and I started to learn their names. 

            I have learned that communication can occur in many different forms.  Also, a lot can be communicated without words, just by non verbal clues.  In the beginning of the scene, there was a blackout and some people showed concern on their faces by staring out the window with a furrowed brow or they looked tense and had a tight jaw when they were angry.  I also learned that non verbal clues do not always match up with what is actually happening.  For example, the couple who were holding hands wasn't a couple at all, they were brother and sister.  Communication is definitely not straight forward and it is important to pay attention to both verbal and non verbal communication to effectively understand a situation.  

What is Communication?

As much as I don’t like to admit it sometimes, my husband is a very competent communicator.  He is a very logical thinker and is also very organized and thorough with everything that he does.  He is the type of person that knows what he wants or expects and knows exactly how to get it.

 An example for this is when we were purchasing a car this past year.  Before even entering a dealership, he set criteria for what he expected from the car and spent time researching.  After using the criteria and research, he selected a few choices from various dealerships and emailed to gather information about their product.  When the dealerships made offers to my husband, he presented the offers to the other dealers who also had the same car in which we were interested.  This created competition among the dealers allowing us to get a better deal on the car we were purchasing.  Not only did he email the dealer, he copied all of the correspondences he made to the manager of the dealership as well.  This held the dealers accountable for customer satisfaction.  After he found the best deal for the car that we wanted, he transferred his communication from the dealer, who works on commission from the car, to the finance manager, who works on commission from the loan package.  This allowed us to receive the car at a lower rate than we would have working directly through the dealer.  All of this occurred before even setting foot into a dealership.  When we did finally go to pick the car up, we signed the documents and drove away with the care within the hour. 

Not only did my husband use his communication skills to save our family time, he also was able to leverage a good deal and get our car under the estimated value.  I believe that he knew how to communicate with the car dealers, but he also anticipated their motivations and used this to get what he wanted.      

I would love to model some of my own communication skills after my husband.  He is extremely assertive and confident in both what he says and what he does, especially when communicating in business type situations.  I am the opposite of him, I am much more laissez-faire in my behavior and try to avoid conflict and appease everyone.  I feel that being more direct could benefit me in achieving tasks both personally and professionally. 

Professional Hopes and Goals

I have learned so much during this course regarding culture and diversity.  There have been many topics that I did not have a clear understanding of until I read the resources and watched the media segment.  Through these resources, I was able to comprehend much more about diversity, culture and how these topics relate to the field of early childhood.  One hope that I have when thinking about working with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is that I can be a model for the children and families with whom I work.  I hope to open the minds of the children and families with whom I work to accept and respect other cultures and each child's unique traits.  I would hope to use opportunities that arise in the classroom as teachable moments in order to teach tolerance and acceptance to the children.

One goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is to develop more programs to teach early childhood educators about these issues.  Early childhood educators need to have an understanding of their own personal diversity in order to understand issues related to this topic.  Programs aimed at developing a deep understanding of diversity, equity, and social justice would benefit the early childhood field by helping educators address issues related to these topics.  Deepening the children's understanding of diversity, equity, and social justice would allow them to grow up with more of an open mind when it comes to the differences of others.  This may be a step in eliminating some of the "-isms" that exist deep in the minds of people. 

I would also like to than Dr. Darragh and my colleagues for sharing all of their knowledge.  I am not currently working with early childhood aged students, I work with 5th graders, but through reading your experiences, I have benefited greatly.  I am able to develop an understanding of the early childhood field with your help.  I'm looking forward to continuing our educational journey together!