CompSAT Professionalism – From Conflict to Teamwork

What were you thinking? You said you were
going to come in on Friday and do a couple of changes, but the room is so chaotic. What
were you thinking? It doesn’t look chaotic to me. I did ask you
and invited you to come and help set up the room. You said, no that it was fine if I went
ahead and rearranged the room. Right, but you didn’t tell me what the changes
were and why you were going to change things the way you did. That conversation would’ve
been so useful to me to know what your thought process was behind the choice of materials
and why you made the changes. That was intense. These situations happen
all the time and make me a little uneasy. And if you don’t deal with them right away,
they just pile up. I really like that they took it on. That takes courage. Let’s listen
to Arlay and her team talk about the conflict, trust and the importance of teamwork. I think the basis of all of our work is strong
because of our strong team. I think our teamwork is really based on trust. I think we’ve developed
this trust through team meetings, and getting to know each other. It’s been really helpful
to me to discuss how we like to receive feedback and when are good times to receive the feedback.
I know it’s not always great for us to receive feedback on the floor, so now it’s after class.
I know for myself I don’t like to receive feedback before class. So I’m getting to really
know each other’s preferences for when to receive feedback. When I think about trust, part of trust is
that it’s okay for us to have disagreements like in any relationship disagreements are
part of life. Sometimes most of my best learning comes out of disagreement, and this team is
very open to know that rather than me being passive-aggressive around Cory or the climbing
instructor??? I know I can come to Cory and say hey what happened? This morning there
was some sand on the sidewalk and the climbing structure, how come you didn’t sweep it up,
and Cory could say “I had a late pick up yesterday.” That gives me an idea that she didn’t do it
on purpose. So part of this team is that we assume the best intentions of everyone. But
this is something that is part of life and gets in the way sometimes. I guess we give
each other the same kind of respect that we give to children. The children don’t break
things because they want to break things. Children don’t bite each other because they
want to bite each other. There’s an impulse control issue that needs to be addressed.
We put that impulse control practice into our relationships. It’s okay to have struggles,
and ask for help when we need it. I think for teachers, we have decided that it’s not
okay to struggle. That it’s not okay to not be perfect and positive all the time. I think
that even a good role model for families is to say you know, I don’t have the answer for
this or that. I need to go and check in with my team about it because I don’t know the
answer to every question. What a great model for friends to say: “Yeah, I don’t know how
to do that either.” You know teachers were supposed to know everything, all of the time.
We all have different strengths and we all have different things we’re working on and
if we put that all together we’re so much stronger. This team is awesome. If I worked with them
I might feel safe enough to take risks like doing more cooking with toddlers. The teamwork
in my room isn’t very strong, so I’m afraid to try new things. Think about the times when
your team was not cohesive or able to support your creativity and risk taking. What makes
a team work well? What have you learned about managing conflict on a team? How do children
and families benefit from effective team work? By the way, in the administration and supervision
competency area you can listen to Arlay talk about her journey starting a new job and learning
the program standards. The risks she describes are only possible because she’s established
a strong and trusting team.

Written by Raul Dinwiddie