Disagreements and Conflicts

As the school year is just about to begin and camp is about to end, there are a lot of decisions to be made about the upcoming school year. Seemingly simple decisions and ideas about our classroom and how it will look for our new group of children. My teaching partner and I have had a few disagreements about room arrangement and classroom decorating. These appear to be very minor disagreements but they are just disagreements right now that we do not want to fester, become conflict and hurt our communication and eventually our working relationship.

There are many new strategies in which I am employing to help defuse the situation and help my partner and I communicate more efficiently in order to come up with solutions that will meet both of our needs and allow us to both feel good about the situation and each other.

Compromising is a great strategy for us as we find “middle ground” between our two opposing positions. We can both agree to give up a little bit of what we want to order to come to an understanding (O'Hair, Wiemann, Mullin, & Teven, 2015). 

We could also use a collaborative style. If I pick something out that I want for our room and my assistant says that she does not like it. I see her choice and do not like it, we can collaborate and keep looking until we find something that we both can live with and something that we mutually agree on together (O'Hair, Wiemann, Mullin, & Teven, 2015). 

The 3r’s will help us to resolve our conflict. The three principles are respect, response and relationship. My assistant and I must show mutual respect for each other as we work with each other every day. We will have a stronger relationship, if we are able to communicate. Room arrangement and decorating are small issues in the larger picture but if we cannot communicate to resolve these issues it will reveal much larger issues and breakdowns in communication. We need to work as a team for our children, colleagues and families. We need to be responsive to each other. We must each be aware of our verbal and nonverbal cues. When communicating we must be mindful and in the moment. Lastly, it always comes down to a good relationship. If we have a strong relationship we will be much more successful. If we are able to model a healthy relationship, it will benefit our entire class.  

I did not have an opportunity to speak this week with any colleagues about effective communication strategies but I did share this assignment with my husband who is a Manager of Engineering. He had many insights on conflict resolution and communication that he uses with his employees and colleagues. Here are some of his strategies:

·         Learn to listen

·         Not talk over and interrupt

·         Understand fully where they are coming from and their thought process

·         Allow them to express their ideas

·         Let them develop their ideas and ask questions

·         Treat with respect

·         Understand their perspective

·         Understand my perspective

·         Their way of thinking may not have been thoroughly thought out, give my insights on the missing pieces

We have had many interesting conversations about effective communication over the past five weeks. These new skills that we are all learning and practicing will benefit us both professionally and personally.

Reference

O'Hair, D., Wiemann, M., Mullin, D. I., & Teven, J.  (2015). Real communication (3rd. ed). New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.