Adjourning

Saying good-bye to a group of people where you became closely related to can be a sad moment. During my college years I was able to bond with my colleagues learning about them and their personal lives. When graduation came, it was a bit sad knowing that some of us would never meet again. Many of us moved to other states, many found jobs in our field while the other half didn’t. We all were happy that our courses were now complete.

Another experience for me, was leaving my baby alone in the hospital without her parents. Although it was not a complete good-bye, it was still a bitter moment. For a month straight, there were doctors who cared for my daughter in the NICU when I couldn’t do a thing for her. I was glad to see my baby leave the hospital but I was going to miss the nurses who cared for her. I remember taking my daughter to meet the nurses who cared after her for me. I wanted her to meet the wonderful team who cared so much for her.

Both of these experiences were big milestones in my life where I was glad to see them coming, but I was sad to see them leave as well.  

Conflict in Communication

I recently experienced a conflict with my boss before the Christmas Holidays. My principal/boss had got angry with me because a student hopped out my van line and disappeared into the car rider line. The way the issue was resolved was not fair. She basically yelled at me making it seem as though it was my fault. The bad part of it was I’m the teacher assistant not the certified teacher. I believe the issue could have been handled differently. During the heated conflict I surprisingly held my tongue while she literally yelled. She kept asking what happened, so I explained my point of view with a little anger in my voice. She never called the certified teacher that works duty with me into her office. I have no idea why, but I still think this issue has been unresolved. I really wanted to tell her a lot of things on my mind but I remained calm and allowed her to talk so that I could understand her frustration.

 

After being in this course I have learned some things about conflict management that may be useful towards my future conflicts.

 

 

Communication Self-Assessment

Doing this week’s application has helped me to identify where I stand as a communicator. I learned that my communication anxiety level was moderate, my level of verbal aggressiveness was significant and my level of listening was classified group 1 people orientated.

I had my husband and coworker to both evaluate me using the same assessments. To my surprise they both rated me as significant on a verbal aggressiveness scale, moderate on communication anxiety and a group 1 listener.

This was a shocker to me, to know that someone else viewed my communication skills the same as I do. I was a bit disappointed with one of my results. To know that my words can be offensive towards others did not sit well with me, although I have always been a person to speak my mind and be through with it.

I expected my husband to score similar to me, but not my colleague. It was glad to know that she viewed me as being a people person. She knows that I love to communicate one on one, but when it has to done publicly I tend to tense up a bit.

Learning about myself has taught me where my strengths and weakness are, and how I can learn to correct the areas that need improvement.