My Appreciation to Peers & Professor

     I would like to take this time to thank all of my peers and professor for allowing me to have such a great experience in this class. There has been a collaboration of thoughts as we have learned together what it takes to be a team working toward similar goals. We all have different experiences, yet we all care and have a passion to help support children and their families as best we can. We are all working toward that big goal of completing our masters in varying specialties. I have received support from peers and professor throughout our discussion boards and feedback from the professor on graded work. All of which has been helpful. This class marks the time in my degree where I will be splitting off from the big group and will be finishing my classes in adult teaching. I look forward to seeing familiar names as I move forward. For those of you that I will not see again I wish you well in all of your goals. I have decided to continue with my blog even after I have completed classes at Walden as a means of continued communication, anyone that I have had any classes along the way has my address. Go forth and do wondrous things my friends!

Toodles, Jenn Pore`

Adjourning is Such Sweet Sorrow

           Saying good-bye can be so very sad. This week I am to reflect on my experiences of when a group that I have belonged to has disbanded. I will admit that I have belonged to some groups that I was relieved when they ended. The most emotional group and I think a great example of a successful and fruitful group was the group of peers that I went through my student teaching class with. The professor was awesome! She new her stuff and was excited and passionate about sharing what she new. The college had a preschool on campus for students and staff. Our classroom was just across the hall from the preschool. It’s been over 7 years since we all went our separate ways but I still think of them often. We shared information, experiences, fears, tears and laughter together. There were about a dozen of us that earned money through out the class and we traveled together to a CAEYC conference in Anaheim and a trip to Disneyland all in the same week. We traveled together in a small bus from the college, told stories and sang the entire 11-hour drive. What a magnificent time we had! The day before we were to drive back home I received a call that my daughter had gone into labor 3 months early and that the baby was going to be delivered. I was recently divorced and living without electricity in order to survive and be able to have gas money to get to classes. Every single one of those women put their money together bought me an airline ticket, drove me to the airport, gave me what they had left for food money and a big group hug. Never have I experienced such humanity. To this day I tear up when I think of what wonderful people they are. Had I not moved away I am certain that I would still be in touch with some of them.

            I have no doubt that the reason the class/group was so successful is because we were all very much of the same mind. Yes, we were a very diverse class but we had the best interest of children in common and it proved to be a great group of people that learned together, supported each other, and we cared what happened to one and other. I anticipate that to some degree I will experience a similar experience when I graduate from Walden. Even though this is a different type of communication and not in person, I have many peers that have been in almost all of my classes over the last year. That is a long time to interact and not feel a loss when it is over. I expect that it will be bitter sweet. I am excited to be nearing the end of this long journey and to finally have earned my masters. I believe that to be successful that we must keep moving forward. In moving forward our classes together will end and I will genuinely wish each of my peers good will. It is an honor working with such dedicated people for such a wonderful reason. I will let my positive memories give me strength when I may have a tough day.

Jenn Pore`

Choose Your Battles in Order to Win the War

            This week we are asked to share a couple of strategies that I have learned to use in order manage or control conflicts. Our text (O’Hair, 2012) states that there are 3 strategies to solve conflict management and those would be: “escapist strategies, challenging strategies and cooperative strategies. This week my boss had accidentally left my credentials off my name when presenting an employee tree to the State during our site review. It really hurt my feelings because it made me look like a nothing on paper. I knew it was an over site and I chose not to say anything. By the end of the next day the review panel had brought it to my bosses attention and it had been corrected. I am so glad that I had not whined or pouted, it would have made me look pretty small.
             I have come to learn this week that one of my standards, choose your battles, would fall under the escapist column. I’m okay with that because when I use this choice it is generally because I have evaluated the situation and environment and have decided that it is not the time or that a bigger picture needs to be considered and I chose to save my energy for the bigger conflict. Sometimes it is more important to loose or forgive on a few small battle hills in order to win the war.

            Another of my all time strategies falls under what I now know to be a cooperative strategy and that is compromising. I think of compromising as a very respectful and useful form of dealing with conflict. Early Childhood professionals have been using it for years. When we offer children two choices to accomplish a task that we want them to do. We are compromising on the fact that we may not get our first choice but we are modeling cooperation and teaching decision-making skills simultaneously. Another aspect that I like about compromise is that everyone gets something that they want. Everyone likes to feel that they have been heard and that there wants and needs have been heard and validated, compromising is a good way to accomplish that goal.

Jenn Pore`

O’Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real Communication: An Introduction. Bedford/

     St. Martin’s, Boston, New York.