End of class 7!

Good luck to all!

Wow, I can’t believe we have completed 7 of our courses already! Thanks to all of you for your ideas and support. We have had so many wonderful discussions…I’ll miss that. It has been great getting to know many of you.

My email address is ekb2004@comcast.net.

I am in the Teaching Adults specialization.

See some of you there…

Adjournment

When I think of the adjournment phase of team building, I picture a whole group of happy, relaxed people. The pressure is off, the goals have been accomplished, and now is the time to rehash how it all went – what worked well, what didn’t turn out so well, what would be changed if we did it again.

It’s a very enjoyable and meaningful phase, I feel.

I had that sort of ‘ending’ experience at the end of my BA degree. There were a group of us who had been in the same classes for the previous 3 years. During this time, we had all helped each other with the various assignments and had worked as teams with each other many times.  We all met up in the school chat room and basically relived the whole experience. We talked about how much we had learned from each other, how we would use what we had learned, and what our future plans were. It was a nice way to end a long partnership.

I hope to have much the same adjournment phase with my colleagues here at Walden. I would also like to make plans to stay in touch after we graduate. I am friends with a few on Facebook, but would definitely like to add more.

Conflict resolution at work

I had a teacher and an assistant who squabbled constantly about who was going to be responsible for all of the work in the class. The teacher felt that she had seniority so should not have to do any of the menial tasks. The assistant felt that she was being treated like a slave by the teacher. They couldn't agree at all and so NOTHING was getting done! it was a mess.

I sat down with them and let them both have a chance to speak. This was not easy, as they quickly moved into disagreement, blame, etc. However, I kept the conversation on point and slowly they began to relax and listen to each other. Once the anxiety had dissipated, they began to work cooperatively.

We ended up with a plan to try changing jobs every week so everyone (me included...I have enough to do as director, but wanted to make it fair and equitable for all) has a turn doing every job. We've agreed to meet again in a month and decide whether we need to come up with another plan. Stay tuned...

Communication Week 2 Make-up post

I decided to look for a random show on television for this assignment. I flipped around and came up with a show called The Good Life. It was on one of those ‘oldies’ tv stations, and kind of looked like what we used to call Afternoon Specials back in the 70’s. I watched the first part with the sound off.

It started with a teenager, walking into a middle school. He seemed to be sad. He walked along with his hands in his pocket and a frown in his face, hardly looking left and right.

A woman came out of an office and seemed to call this boy. He looked up, surprised. By the smile playing around her mouth and her bright eyes, I could tell she had some kind of good news or maybe a surprise of some kind for him.

When he walked into her office, she showed him a piece of paper and he grew very excited. His eyes were wide open and he had sort of a flushed face. He got a big smile on his face, so it was obviously good news. They were both smiling and happy. She shook his hand and seemed to be congratulating him.

I turned on the sound to see what was going on. Sure enough, the boy had entered a writing contest. He didn’t think he had a chance of winning because he didn’t have training and wasn’t a ‘fancy’ writer. He wrote from the heart, though, and that is what made the judges vote for him. The woman was his English teacher and the prize notice was what she had shown him.

My assessment of what was going on turned out to be quite accurate. If I had been able to hear, I would have been able to make out the finer details.

It actually was a pretty good movie  :  )