Thank You!

 As we move forward in our journey to our degrees, I want to say thank you to my colleagues that I have been working with along the way. You all have helped me learn and grow and I feel that I have changed my outlook on life with your assistance and guidance. I've learned several lessons along the way, especially through this last course together. Collaboration and communication are important in all aspects of life, but especially in early childhood and throughout our classes together.

I look forward to working with you all again in the future.

Team Building and Collaboration, Part 1

 My hardest goodbye was leaving the group of teachers that I had worked with for nine years. We had grown up together: attended each other’s weddings, met new babies, helped during troubling times. When I decided to leave this school, it was as if I was leaving my extended family. They had all taken such good care of my daughter through the years, and I was extremely sad to not be able to give them the chance to help me raise my son.  We had been there for the best times together, and pulled together when times were tough: not having enough staff, or a director, or experiences with awful parents.

When I left, we cried, hugged, told stories from over the years, and just loved each other. I knew I was making the right choice by leaving the company that I was working for, but leaving the people was the hardest part. The environment was toxic, but my co-workers are what kept me there for so long.

I think the reason this was the hardest was that we had grown together. We knew how to make the school operate without even trying. We were a well-oiled machine.  

My hope after working with people for so long is that we can stay in touch throughout the years. Social media has been extremely helpful in reconnecting with friends and colleagues from the past. Also, our blogs have been helpful in getting to know each other. I would hope that we can continue to be a part of each other’s lives since we have shared so much together.

Adjourning is so important because it is the closing chapter of a book series. We work together and grow together and when finishing, we write our final chapter together and are able to close the back cover of the book. The finality of the experience is there but friendships do not have to end.

Nonviolent Communication and Conflict Management

I love my job. I am confident in my work and I am able to really relate to the teachers that I am working with. As the assistant director of the school, it is my job to intake new families, tour potential families, and assist teachers in their classrooms with issues. I speak to the teachers on the regular and often give messages to them from families that have emailed and from the executive director, with who I share an office. 

Today, I had a disagreement with a teacher because I told her she could leave early! I had previously told three other teachers that they could give breaks to their co-teachers and leave early as numbers were low and I didn't need them for the afternoon. This teacher, our infant lead teacher, began arguing with me in the classroom. I made sure to be positive when I gave her the news (because who doesn't love to leave early on a Friday?!) and I was not met with the reaction that I had expected. She began arguing with me that she did not want to lose her hours and that it wasn't fair to bring in the afternoon teacher early so she would have to leave early. I told her I would see what I could do but didn't make any promises. 

Personally, I hate when teachers argue with me in the classroom. It is extremely disrespectful and inappropriate for the classroom. I have no problem with a teacher coming to me and discussing an issue, but I do not like when they argue in front of the children and other teachers.

After I walked out of the room, I sat in my office and seethed for a few minutes. I had not handled the situation exactly how I should have, as I do not like conflict and I completely shut down.

Later in the morning, the teacher actually came to me to apologize for her reaction. I used skills from NVC expression to explain to her my reasoning for having her leave early. I also explained my feelings about her initial reaction to me. It had upset me and I wanted her to know that it was not an appropriate way for her to react.

I also remembered the requests vs. demands list from CNC. I was able to explain my feelings and her reaction. In the end, we hugged after our conversation and there were never any hard feelings from either of us. Perception is reality and going back to what we learned about in weeks prior about the platinum rule, I had to treat her the way that she wanted to be treated. 

My final thought is, would you have done anything differently? 

Who I am as a Communicator

 This week, I've learned a lot about my communication style. Based on the Communication Anxiety Inventory quiz that I took about myself, my score indicates that I have "situational" anxiety. I feel that this is extremely true about me. When I am comfortable and in my element, I am extremely comfortable with communicating with others. When I am unsure or doubting myself, I do tend to freeze up and have extreme anxiety. My throat gets tight, my mouth goes dry, I start to sweat. 

My colleagues that took these quizzes about me also agreed with me. My score from one was mild, that I tend to be uneasy in some situations, and confident in others. This also rings true for me. The other colleague's quiz estimated the same result as myself. How interesting that the people around me know me as well as they do. That is my first insight. I am allowing myself to be readable by the people around me. I am learning that I might need to cover up my feelings a little better because the people around me can see that I am nervous and scared and anxious. 

If I want to continue to grow in this field, I will need to become more confident in socially and work related communicative situations. 

A second insight that I realized about myself is that I am truly people oriented with my listening style. Both my colleagues and myself all scored me in the People-oriented category. I do tend to care about the emotions of others. I love people and I guess I could be considered a people pleaser. I care about what people think of me. Even going through my divorce, I am worried about how my estranged husband will feel about me when everything is finalized. It shouldn't matter in this situation, but because I care so much, it does. 

As we continue to move through this course, I hope that I can continue to learn more about myself and my communication style so I can better myself for the future.

Communication and Culture

"Misunderstanding and miscommunication occur between people from different cultures because of different coding rules and cultural norms, which play a major role in shaping patterns of interaction. The greater the difference between the cultures, the more likely it is that they will use different verbal and nonverbal codes" (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2011).

When communicating with the different groups of people that I work with, I tend to change my language based on who I am speaking with. I always have the same outcome in mind when I am discussing something, but my approach is different based on each individual's personality. I know who I can joke with, who I have to be more matter of fact with, and who needs to hear the reason for my interaction. 

I work with all women, except for one male assistant teacher and our male owner. I can approach the male assistant teacher differently than I would approach our male owner. Although I know that I can be a sarcastic and jovial person, I tend to tone it back with our owner because he is my boss, technically, and is more into business than joking. He can have fun, but it is not a common occurrence. I have a great relationship with the female teachers and I like to think that I have figured out each of their personalities so I know how to approach each of them. It is almost like learning the personalities of each child in your class at the beginning of the school year. There is a learning curve, but once you know how each child learns, you can adapt your teaching style for them to learn best. Same goes with staff members. 

I try to use comic relief when I converse with most people I meet. I find that if I can make someone smile, I can connect with them better. I also try to share similarities with them and relate a situation that I was in with something they are going through. When I can relate to them, we can communicate better and have a better connection. 

Finally, I like to connect with people by asking questions and listening to what the person is actually saying. I try not to read too far into their responses and take them for the words they are providing. This of course goes hand in hand with making a similar connection and relating together. 

Ultimately, I like to listen and actually hear what the other person is saying. When you look too far into it, you end up misinterpreting the end result.

Resource

Beebe, S., Beebe, S., & Redmond, M. (2011). Interpersonal Communication and Diversity: Adapting to Others. In Interpersonal communication: relating to others (pp. 85–114). essay, Pearson. 

Communication Skills: Language, Nonverbal, Listening

This week, I chose to watch an episode of the show "Dynasty." It is not something that I usually would watch or have an interest in. I assumed since it is a soap opera, it would be something that I would be able to see a good amount of interaction with. 

When the show starts, there are two people texting back and forth. It seems that there are many characters. Some look like they are not "good people."  While watching the interaction between mos of the characters, there seems to be a lot of sexual innuendos occurring between them. There is a driver that looks to be flirting with a younger blonde woman. There is an older man that looks to be the "boss" in some company. A dark-haired woman dressed in expensive clothes shows up at his office and they begin to kiss on his desk. The younger blonde woman enters the room with a younger man and they all look surprised to see each other. 

The story continues with interactions happening and eventually cuts to the dark-haired woman in a dark alley, meeting another man in a car. He looks concerned and surprised to see her. They have an in-depth conversation and the woman leaves. The show cuts to the older man and the dark-haired woman in bed together. She looks to be in distress and gets out of bed. The older man looks at his phone after she leaves the room and he looks concerned. He signs heavily and rolls over in bed. This body language tells me that something has been sent to him that has immediately caused him stress. 

The show continues and the dark-haired woman meets the younger man at her home(?) and the older man introduces them. They appear to be faking that they have not met before. The younger blonde woman notices this interaction and her eyebrows raise. 

They all move to dinner and the blonde-haired woman looks to go on a rant and the dark-haired woman and older man do not look happy with what is being said. It looks to be an intense conversation.

It's extremely interesting to watch the body language and facial expressions that are taking place between all the characters. I was expecting soap opera drama, but I hadn't realized how dramatic some of these shows really are.

My ultimate prediction about each character is that the older man is some type of boss of a company. The dark-haired woman is his wife, or girlfriend, or mistress. The blonde woman is somehow related to the older man, and the younger man is an acquaintance that is somehow roped into the family.

OKAY- having watched the episode now, the younger blonde woman (Fallon) is the older man's (Blake) daughter.and she is hoping for a promotion to run the family business. The dark haired woman is Crystal and she is the older man's fiancee. The driver that picked Fallon up from the airport seems to be a boyfriend of some type to Fallon.

The man in the dark alley is Matthew, Crystal's ex-boyfriend. Now I understand why she was so careful about meeting him: she already knew him. When Blake checks his phone, he is actually looking for an itinerary for the engagement photos that have to be taken. In actuality, Fallon has sent him pictures of Crystal and Matthew together during their meeting. 

Based upon what I have watched, I believe that some of my predictions were correct because of their communication styles. Others were not correct. If I had been watching a different show that I usually watch, I am sure that I would have been able to figure out what was happening. I have watched all 17 seasons of Grey's Anatomy and although the storyline changes, I still would have been able to follow the episode without volume. 

This was a fun experiment but I will stick to the sound on. And I might just continue watching Dynasty now.

Communication Skills in Action

This week, I would like to write about my father. He is an expert mechanic and chassis builder. He is very mechanically minded and is very thorough when discussing information about cars, plumbing, electrical, carpentry, and anything science-related. My father has an associate's degree in business, as he has his own business now for almost 30 years. He lights up when he talks about something that he is passionate about, and not always things that he is passionate about. He is animated and will over-explain things to help make sure that you understand what he is trying to describe/explain. As an Italian man, he is extremely animated with his gestures and drawings and intonation of his voice. It's actually quite comical sometimes. I know that no matter what I need, I can ask him for his help and his explanation will help me learn.

I feel that as his daughter, I do tend to explain things with my hands and pictures just like him. I also like to help whoever I am talking to to understand my explanation so I tend to overexplain as well. Since he is so passionate about everything he talks about, it would be an honor to model his communicative skills after him. 

This is my father. My maiden name is Luciano, so my father has always been called Lucky as his nickname. 

This is my father in his racecar that he built. As a chassis builder, he builds the entire inside frame and chassis of the car. 

Since we drag race as a hobby, my father is always helping other teams with their program. He loves to work! In this photo, he is helping a car back up down the track so they are lined up straight.