Team Development: The Adjourning Stage

I imagine that I will have adjourned from the many groups of colleagues while working on my master’s degree in this program. We all have come together to understand an important component and contributor to the field of early childhood education. We have shared our different paradigms and have further shaped our own. We have also opened doors to future communication past this course, if desired. Effective communication is what is needed to be able to become responsive to the needs of diverse children and their families. I feel that adjourning is an essential stage when working in teams because every member has the chance to elaborate on their part in completing the task. I have grouped with many people when completing tasks and have experienced that the adjourning stage allows people to open up and express their social identities past the task at hand. I have built relationships with people that I have been assigned to work with. I met my husband during the adjourning stage. I visited a church in Lagos, Nigeria with missionaries from the States in 2012. After the events were over, we had the opportunity to reflect on what occurred that day and we began to enjoy each other’s conversation. Yes, it was hard to leave, but I am thankful for this stage of development. I think that it is important to implement the five stages of team development when collaborating with others. It gives everyone the opportunity to come together and communicate towards a positive cause and could possibly build relationships. Reference: O'Hair & Wiemann. (2012). Real Communication: An Introduction

Conflicts

I have had many conflicts where I work. I will admit that having the ability to shape who I am has helped me to deal with the conflicts better. I am employed in a low income community of predominately Black children and I become frustrated because their development is viewed to be elusive. I advocate for children and hope that teachers have positive thoughts about children and their future and not speak of negative thoughts about children and their families. One conflict that I have is the fact that our young children need to fully be understood before we can say that they are failures; for we have no clue as to how their home environment is. Many of the students that I work with have to help their parents financially and/or have issues with maintaining a functional family. We have to understand that children will bring their stressors to school and act on them. It is our responsibility as educators to identify anything that will harm children’s development and look past viewing them as future investments. I find that many of my colleagues are struggling with following the written curriculum and are becoming burnt out with the behaviors of children. Well, I feel that there will continue to be negative behaviors until teachers learn ways to alter or modify the curriculum to fit the needs of individual children. I am often told that the written curriculum is challenging enough and that teachers don’t receive the support that they need to help to close the gap of children falling behind in their development. Individuals learn at their own pace and we as educators need to embrace their differences in order to create effective teaching. I will continue to research for ways to promote effective communication. I will also continue to research the issues of laws and curriculum set forth by policy makers for our future. I often think of how could diverse groups be identified and respected when guidelines that are written complicate current issues of diversity. I personally think that issues begin with some of the guidelines that are put in place for others to follow. I think that there is a need for many guidelines to be revised due to the changing times of our society. How are we fostering positive development for young children and families, if we do not fully understand them? How can we help assist individual needs?

Communication Evaluations

The one thing that surprised me the most about the evaluations is that my colleague and my mother both evaluated me about the same. After reviewing the results, I believe that one has to know one before they evaluate them to yield accurate data. As far as the information gained that was very helpful, I enjoyed learning a bit more about myself. I need to improve on my anxiety level when communicating. I can honestly say I am the one whose heart beats in small meetings. I believe it is because I am very loquacious but afraid to make a mistake when speaking. I know, I am only human, but when you have people starring at you anxiety can set in. I am aware of this issue and will find ways to manage my thinking process when in meetings and/or communicating with others. I appreciate encoding the resources for the week and learning more about my colleagues at Walden University.

Competent Communication with Passion

When thinking about someone who demonstrates competent communication the person that comes to mind is my mother. She was a single parent that led the young girl scouts of the community where we lived. We lived in a low income community of the same culture as ours. She always found a way to help others. She had the ability and the passion to successfully communicate with diverse families about the goals of their children. She built positive relationships and helped many families with other needs that they had. I can remember my mother delivering food baskets to the families of the young girls and was often invited to family functions. My mother’s diverse behaviors while communicating with others were effective and I wish to model some of my communication skills after her. She made people feel comfortable when communicating with her and they felt as if they were treated fairly. She now runs a daycare from her home and continues to demonstrate competent communication. I wish to build positive relationships with others while I respect their differences. It is crucial to understand the needs of families and offer support when needed. Communication is essential to encoding knowledge about others.

Welcoming Diverse Families

A family from Nigeria has recently immigrated into the United States and their female child will be enrolling into the daycare center that I am employed. The family is from the Delta State part of Nigeria where female education is not as serious as the boys. In an article provided by the UNFPA, Nigerian Girls, states that poverty and economic issues, early marriage and teenage pregnancy, inadequate school infrastructure and cultural and religious misinterpretation are the main issues that prevent girls from going to school compared to the boys. (UNFIEC, 2007) As child care director, I would have to educate myself and my staff on ways to first communicate with this family. We need to know what gestures offend this family as well as their surface and deep culture. We have to be aware of our personal or hidden biases. We have to learn ways to understand their mission for enrolling their child into this program. Once we understand the family’s mission for their child, we can begin to further help them with needed resources to understand the center’s mission to educate young children. Opening communication doors can involve the director asking questions to see if the family needs further assistance that the program can offer, such as resources for housing, employment and so on. I think that this will help to break cultural barriers when help is offered from the people that will be embracing their child. Understanding their rituals and beliefs is also important to understand and made a note of for future events that may go against their cultural beliefs. Allowing the child to bring items from home will help the child with the transition. In conclusion, welcoming the family and fully understanding their individual need is important to their child’s process. The family enrolling their child into the program should be a must know that this family goes against the fact that girls education is not equal as the boys in the area that they are from and values their female child’s education. Reference: UNFIEC. (2007). Nigerians Girls. Nigeria Country Office http://www.unicef.org/wcaro/WCARO_Nigeria_Factsheets_GirlsEducation.pdf

Memories that can be harmful

When thinking back and digging into my journey thus far, I can remember many experiences with biases, prejudices and oppression from my own race as well as others. One incident of oppression that I experienced while I was going through grade school, middle school and high school was being called a white girl although I am Black. I tried my best to fit in with my own culture but it was difficult to be accepted by them. I felt as if I was hated because of the tone of my skin. One prejudice that I can remember that is fresh living in a suburban neighborhood with the dominant culture. The people that surround me make it obvious that they do not like Blacks. My family has not done anything to receive the looks and lack of waves from the neighbors. It is sad, but it has become funny because it reveals one’s ignorance on diversity, it shows me that some have cold hearts, plus, it is a great teaching moment for my children so that they will not endure harm for being different. I laugh because I want my children to get use to the way that the world really is. It also helps them to accept the ignorance of others in a better way as well as accepting the cultural differences of others. I tell them that it is not our neighbors fault; for they are only human. These experiences are events of diminished equality. I grew up feeling as if I was not good enough for neither group, my own race nor the dominant race. I later learned that I had to change those negative feelings into positive ones, so I began to use them as motivation tools. I strive to become successful at a level to where my children are comfortable; for they are part of the reasons as to why I continue on this journey of positives over negatives when thinking of the paradigms of others. I refusing to accept the oppression of others. I feel the need to educate young children on equal rights for all and to treat others like they want to be treated. I want all children to love the skin that they are in and that no one can tell them who they are; for they can have the abilities to be successful. I want to help children to understand the deep meaning of respecting diversity and having equal rights. In conclusion, I think that my experiences have helped to make me the strong woman that I am today. I wholeheartedly believe that the passion that I have for everyone helps me to cope with my own issues with the views of others as I strive to be comfortable in the skin that I am in.

Awareness of Microaggressions

An example of a form of microaggression that I happen to view this week occurred a few days back when I was standing in line at the Driver’s License Facility in Belleville, Illinois to get a sticker renewal. The lady that was in front of me needed to have her address changed on her license, but failed to have the three proper identifications needed for this process to happen. The lady was disable and she slowly walked with a cane. The lady failed to bring two bills from the new address that she needed to reflect on her license. She only had one along with the lease. The lady insisted on being able to have this process done without two bills because she had her lease. The receptionists was clearly irritated because I saw her she sigh more than once, looking over the facility for another staff member, with a rude look on her face. She did not like that the lady challenged her with her knowledge of knowing that it could be accomplished. She was right, it was accomplished. The receptionists then turned to her colleague and began to discuss the nerve of the lady to talk to her as if she was her boss, but the lady was just stating her knowledge. The receptionist was so loud that everyone that was around heard her. The lady that knew that she could have her address changed looked at the receptionists and said, “Excuse me”. The receptionist ignored her and smiled at the next customer saying, “May I help you.” The other customers by me were saying how rude the receptionist was to because she was talking about the lady. I was hurt for the lady and I felt the dehumanization as well. She could not handle being wrong to the older disable woman that was clearly the same race as her, white. The form of microaggresion that I figured this case to be was the disability microaggression. The lady needing the services was clearly poor and had on clothes that were not so clean. I also felt that the receptionist did not want to work help her because of this reason. I don’t know if the receptionist was just upset due to the lady’s demand or if she was ashamed that a member from her culture was disable and dirty. I thought about the way that the lady felt, but she picked up on the microaggression from the receptionist. Our world needs to understand how hidden biases can be revealing to the eye of others, if not that person that is being targeted.