While conflict is indeed a natural part of every relationship, a great conflict arise through provocation (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2009). The recent conflict I had with my assistant perfectly fit into this description. It all happened that we had agreed on what to do for the week when we had our planning meeting and roles has been assigned. I have always cherish a positive relationship with my colleagues especially those who work directly with me. I strongly believe that the working relationship between a teacher and her assistant holds the key to the success of teaching and learning in any early childhood classroom. So, it has always been that I try to establish understanding between me and my assistant by fully informing her about the intention of the lesson, the way I have planned it, what are the expected outcomes as well as get her inputs and contributions.
The conflict arose because my partner failed to do what was expected of her do and when I gently asked her about it, she could not give me any response. She only left the classroom and come back later to do it. Not only was it belated, she did it in a way that showed that she is either incompetent or outrightly acting provocatively. As O'hair & Wiemann (2009) rightly said, when someone you worked with or depend on performs poorly, the person is in a sense provoking conflict. Needless to say that I was annoyed, I talked to her with annoyance leading to the head of the school's intervention before the issue was resolved.
The non violent communication principle as advocated by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg emphasis the need for empathy in communication. People need to receive empathy before we talk about a particular challenge, problem, criticise them or even talk about an error they have committed. In retrospect now, I think I should have been able to manage the conflict in a more effective way if I had first take care of myself emotionally as this would have enable me to truly empathise with my partner before taking up the issue with her. As someone once said, “if your discussion isn't going well, it is probably because you haven't emotionally connected to the other person and vice versa.”
Another strategy that I have learned this week and that I could have used to better resolve the conflict is to first observe the situation well without evaluating or judging my partner. This would have made my reaction to be based on principle or reason and not on pressure thus I would have been able to state my discussion with her in a more objective way and I would have been able to get a more responsible action or/and answer from her.
Reference
O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2009). Real communication. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.
Great post and thanks for sharing that you try to include your assistance in on your lesson plans. I hope that you continue to involve your assistance and communicate affectively. Remember that there are going to times where there is conflict in the work place.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to that as I had a somewhat simular situation , however it ended up with me reprimanding the person, and she still is not performing as expected.The important thing is that you realize what yoou could have done differently for solving problems in the future.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely understand your frustrations with that situation. I can admit, when in the moment of anger, it is quite difficult to try to empathize when your blood pressure is sky high. :) I enjoyed learning so much about conflict resolution and can now put it to use now that I know how to properly resolve it!! Thanks for sharing your post.
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