About a month ago, I was in a conflict with a preschool teacher over how to make the
classroom centers in her classroom more defined. According to the program
specialist, that the administration team hired to help this teacher redesign
her classroom for the ECERS-3, one center needed to be separated into two
distinct areas and two centers had to be switched.
The teacher however, did not agree. I
met with her a few times and specifically asked her to make the switch and separate
the one center. I gave her a deadline of a week and asked her if she needed
help. She emphatically she did not want help. I waited after the deadline. The
centers remained the same and so, I asked her to meet me in the conference room.
When she arrived, I asked her why the task had not been done and she said
something rude and walked out.
I documented the result of my meeting and
asked my supervisor to meet with both of us to get this task completed. At the
next meeting with my supervisor, the teacher had invited the executive director
to sit in and so, we had 3 administrators in the meeting, plus the teacher and
I copied the latest documentation for everyone, including the teacher to read.
After everything was said and done, the
teacher was given until the end of the day to complete the original task of
redefining the centers. My supervisor was also asked to order a larger cabinet for
the teacher’s art materials.
As The Center for Nonvioldent
Communication model suggests, I felt the communication break down between myself and the teacher could have been
avoided if the teacher had been more honest in expressing her classroom needs
because in the end, she still had to complete the tasks that were originally assigned by the end of the day and she did. She did however, also gain another,
larger cabinet to hold all of her art suppliesfor her classroom — a request, she said she asked
my supervisor to order for her earlier, but had not received a reply. I however, had no knowledge of this request but felt my overall communication was effective.
Reference
The
Center for Nonviolent Communication. (n.d.). The center for nonviolent
communication.
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