Week 8 Goodbyes

I would like to take this time to say thank you to everyone in my group that has supported me, encouraged me, challenged me, and helped me throughout this course and previous courses.  It has been really fun getting to know each of you and I have enjoyed all of our conversations and discussions.  I wish each of you luck in your future courses and with your future career choices.  Thank you to all of my group members:  Bethany, Melanie, Sha-Kevia, Shawn, MarieFrance, Tinka, and Victoria.  Good luck to each of you.

Adjourning Groups

I believe adjourning from a group is difficult when close bonds are formed.  Working closely together in a group can lead to personal relationships and bonding.  It can be difficult to say good-bye.  I believe the hardest group to leave was when I was getting my bachelor's degree.  I had the same people in all of my classes for 2 years.  We always formed the same groups and became very close.  It was hard saying goodbye because we had all became very good friends and teammates.  I had shared so much with these group members over the past two years.  We had learned and grown together.

It has been several years now and we are all still friends and communicate with each other through facebook.  We have a special bond with each other that did not end when our classes and group projects ended.  I am glad that we still talk and are friends.

Communication Week 5

At the Head Start where I work we lost funding and, because of this, we lost a classroom.  We returned back to work this week and I had everything from my classroom, plus the classroom furniture and materials from the room we lost, all shoved into my small room.  My assistant and I have been going through the things and figuring out what we want and what do not want.  Nobody has came to get the extra furniture from our room and we have had a difficult time working around it.  One can barely walk because of all the extra stuff. My assistant is a very emotional person and this task has really gotten to her this week.  We have had several disagreements this week on our classroom.  I am the type of person that if I have not used something in a few months chances are I won't use it and it just needs to go.  She is a "pack rat" and does not want to throw anything away.   This has caused some disagreements between us.  

I actually used some of the strategies that I have learned from this course with her this week in order for us to have better communication and less disagreements.  One of the strategies that I used was compromise.  I listened to her voice her opinions about why she wanted to keep certain things.  Then I explained why I thought we should get rid of it.  Then I suggested that we compromise.  We would keep it, if we could find a place for it, but if we did not find a use for it this year then we would get rid of it for next year.  She agreed.  Another strategy that I used with my assistant was empathetic listening.  I have learned that with her, you need to be a good listener.  A lot of the times she just needs someone to listen to her and she needs to feel wanted and important.  By using these two strategies, I was able to resolve our conflict.  

My co-worker and I had a discussion on conflict communication and becoming a NVC.  She told me that she tries to listen to parents or others whenever there is a conflict and tries to understand where they are coming from before voicing her opinion.  She said she just tries to take each conflict that comes up and handle it to the best of her ability and learn from it.