Managing Conflict in Relationships

"Healthy debate serves a real purpose in that it helps individuals and groups make smarter decisions. By skillfully working through conflicting ideas about how to solve a problem or reach a goal, we identify the best course of action" (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2012).

I could definitely relate to the portion of our text that discussed attitudes towards conflict. I am one that dislikes arguing and debate. I tend to gear away from politics, leave a room when I am upset and scream into a pillow when I am angry. One of my close colleagues says this is exactly why I have so many stomach issues, because I bottle everything up and the "negative energy" stays in my system. 

Recently I experienced some productive conflict with my colleagues during one of our planning meetings. My kindergarten team consists of 5 teachers (including myself) and we consider ourselves pretty good friends. I was nervous at the beginning of the school year because we were having some disagreements on what to teach the first week of school. I had all these great ideas in my mind, but they were squashed by my colleagues because it didn't follow the certain skills we had to cover. So I felt frustrated and upset that no one took my ideas into consideration. The next few planning days were equally as frustrating. I felt like I couldn't teach how I wanted and I was being told what to do.

So one day, I finally had enough and expressed my feelings to the team while our administrators were in the room. I didn't go off on a rant or tangent, but I expressed my concerns that clearly our classes were on different levels of learning. (Some of us felt some activities were too easy and some thought they were too hard for their students.) My administrators told us that as long as we are teaching the same skill, we can do whatever activities we want with our students. So I can put my own flair on my lessons and the same with my colleagues. This made our planning the rest of the month go much smoother because if we were a huge fan of a certain lesson, we knew we could "tweak it" to fit our teaching style and our students' learning needs. The great thing about this resolution is that we can share with each other how our lessons went and if they went really well, usually the other teachers will try it out with their kids too! We are very supportive of one another and that gives us a supportive climate to discuss our frustrations or concerns.

Strategies that I have learned about that might help me manage or resolve the conflict more productively would be cooperative strategies. We all benefited from agreeing to teach the same skill, but in our own ways. We also keep our focus on the issues. We don't take it personally and attack each other's teaching abilities. We all respect each other and work as a team so that we can do what is best for our students. 

Resources 

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication: An introduction. New York: Bedford/St.Martin's.