Thank You

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” ~ Carl Gustav Jung.  Retrieved from http://personalexcellence.co/blog/101-most-inspiring-quotes-part-4/#growth

Someone shared this quote with me many years ago. With it they said, those that you find the most challenging to work with are holding up a mirror to behaviors you don’t like in yourself. This quote came to mind often as learned about effective communication in this course. So often we blame others for communication breakdown and once again I have learned the only person I can change is me. I am responsible for part of every communication I have with others. The lesson of the Platinum Rule will remain with me (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2011). Learning to treat others as they want to be treated has helped me improve the effectiveness of my communication with many people already.

Thank you to all of my colleagues that once again helped me learn and grow as an early childhood professional. We certainly developed a level of trust that allowed us to share very personal stories, enabling us to learn from each other’s experiences. It has been invaluable to be able to read the various perspectives of what we were learning. I gained insight from each discussion and blog post and was able to reflect on the information from a view I may have never considered on my own. 

I am optimistic that with our new understanding of effective communication we will go on to influence the field of early childhood in many positive ways. To my colleagues that will continue on to the Administration, Management and Leadership specialization, I look forward to studying with you again. To the rest of my colleagues I wish you continued success, please stay in touch.  I hope to see everyone at graduation next August!

Reference

Beebe, S. A., Beebe, S. J., & Redmond, M. V. (2011). Interpersonal communication: Relating to others (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon

Adjourning

Learning about the five stages groups go through to form a team: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning has been very enlightening. As I was reading about this, I started to reflect on the many groups I have belonged to over the years to see if I could pick out the stages of our development.

I have a very vivid memory from high school, when the curtain closed on the last performance of the first high school play I was in. We performed Guys and Dolls and I was a member of the chorus. I had a huge sense of loss and I did not see that emotion coming. I believe part of it was age. At 14, I was so focused on the goal that I did not see past it. As an adult I realize that some groups will only be formed for a short period of time.

The group of 30 or so students that put on this production came from many different groups throughout the school. I was a sophomore at the time, but the group was composed of students from all classes. I made friends with people that I would not have met or interacted with if not for us all working together to put on this production. We spent hours together rehearsing and working toward our goal of perfecting every aspect of the production.  After months of rehearsal, it was over in five performances.

To ease our adjournment we had a cast party to celebrate our accomplishment. We spent time signing each other’s programs with our favorite memories. When the yearbooks came out at the end of the school year, many of us sought each other out to once again sign on the pages with play pictures. I was part of the school musicals for the next two years. People who were acquaintances when we began production were friends for years afterward.

I hope to celebrate this group’s adjournment by meeting in person to celebrate our graduation. I already have concerns, because several of us will no longer be in classes together as we begin studies in our respective specializations. I keep in touch with friends from previous courses through Walden email or text messaging.  Please feel free to reach out, we cannot build a strong enough support network as we near the finish, we will all have Capstone projects to complete! 

Reference

O’Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2009). Real communication: An introduction. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.