Team Development: A Reflection on Adjourning

The adjourning part of every team development has always been the hardest part, but a few times I was too ready to be done with the group. My hardest team/group to leave has to be from my freshman year of undergrad. I completely loved that group of students in my first fashion course at LSU. We would all stay late nights and weekends busting butt to get our designs completed; and I loved that we all had the same work ethic. Like in this weeks readings and media segment, we learned the foundations of a successful team and that group of students definitely had each one to a T. It was nice not worrying if someone would do there part, had a clear undertanding of what was needed of them, and showed up ready to work and contribute equally to the team. I have also been part a few teams where I absoluted hated the team I was in and just counted down the days under the adjournment. These teams all had pretty much everything opposite of what a successful teams needs; no one wanted to work, everyone was either late or didn't show up for meetings, and I ended up do the entire project myself so I wouldn't fail because of someone else not wanting to do anything for the group.  Sometimes being a part of a group or team can be amazing, while other times you just want out before you even start. As a professional and adult now I have learned to work with what I have to work with and make the best of the situation, but that took some years to get use to. Now that I am the instructor for furture teacher, I teach them the importance of working together as a team and everyone doing their part for the success of the whole team. Especially as furture teachers, I want them to understand that we work with a huge TEAM from parents to student, coworkers and administrations, and even the community and government.

Communication Evaluation

This week I had my sister and brother-in-law evaluate my communication skills and then compared them three ideas and views. I feel my personal evaluation was a bit bias due to I think I communicate amazingly, I know I have some (very few) areas for improvement,  but none the less I believed I was doing pretty darn well in the communication part of my skills. My sister had very close views of my communication skills as I did, however, she was more harsh when it came to my listening skills. She felt I jump to assumptions easily and seemingly refuse to listen to others views on topics I feel passionately about. My brother-in-law had a completely different opinion on my skills and I am guessing hes feelings are a little more honest, but at the same time I kind of took some thoughts as him joking. He saw me as a good communicator when I wanted to be, I am a huge push over and people pleaser; which makes it hard for me to actually have/state my real feelings for anything, and he felt like I can get overwhelmed in stressful or new situations which causes my communication level to decrease.

After listening to my family's thoughts and evaluations of my communication skills I started to realize and pin-point areas in which they were referring to. I completely see where they were coming from and noticed myself trying to adjust my skills level and actively listen regardless of my personal feelings. I was completely surprised of my brother-in-laws honesty when I asked them to evaluate me. He actually wanted to have a sit down meeting to discuss ideas for me to improve my skills and become a better listener and less of a people pleaser.

Now that I have a clearer idea of what others see as my communication skills I feel I can adjust and hone my abilities to better suit my personal and professional careers alike.

Cultural Communications

Sometimes I do find myself communicating differently depending on the group I am speaking in front of. I adapt my delivery methods and techniques as it relates to the implied needs of the group. It is definitely easier to communicate with people I see as similar to myself because of my comfort level with them. However, I feel I am extremely empathic and desire to communicate with everyone equally and try my best to find a link or connection for smooth lines of communication. Some of the ways I adapt my communication skills when speaking with someone from another group or culture is to listen well, not interrupt, repeat what I understood, and try to speak clearly/ use facial expressions to get my ideas across. It is important to attempt to make another person comfortable when speaking/communicating with you, so that they are more likely to comprehend your point.

Competent Communicators

(oldest sister, older sister, ME, mom, dad, little brother, oldest brother)

 

I have a family of educators and what I feel are extremely competent communicators. The one that would stand out of all of us the most would be my oldest sister.

I believe my oldest sister is the strongest out of the family in communication because she presents herelf as a highly educated and professional person with a high vocabulary level and understanding. One situation that I know assisted her in becoming a more competent and aware communicator would be that her daughter (my niece) is mute, meaning she has to use sign language and non-verbal communication to communicate. Because of this my sister has focused in on listening, watching, and being completely engaged in the entire atmosphere of a conversation or in communicating with others. My sister is a highly successful female and commands attention when she enters a room, which also elevates her communication skills and effectiveness. Again, I do feel like many of us in my family are extremely competent communcators, but she is someone I would model my communication techniques off of.

Professional Hopes and Goals

One of my biggest hopes as it relates to my work with children and families who come from diverse backgrounds is to have the ability to share high quality education and health care services to all in my community. Coming into the master’s program I had a huge passion for providing youth with food insecurity with some sort of food service and a safe learning environment at the same time. I look for to my future in the early childhood profession and know now that I will have not only the endless passion, but also the educational backing as well to enhance my community and its entire people.

My overall goal I would like to set for the early childhood field related to issues of diversity, equity, and social justice is that as child care and education professionals we are responsible in providing the highest quality programs and embraces multicultural inclusion.

I would like to thank all my colleagues for your continuous support and positive feedback throughout this course. I feel during this course I have really been able to open my mind and embrace everyone as unique and informative in their own way. I know we will all do amazing things in the early childhood professions. I look forward to working with each of you in the future and seeing our successes on our journey.

 

Fran Logan

 

Families From Around the World

My incoming family’s country of origin: Cambodia

 

5 ways I will prepare myself to be culturally responsive:

1.       Understand the complete reason for moving to America and to our community.

2.       Research and gain knowledge of the Cambodian culture and traditions.

3.       I would help inform my current students about the new student and their culture so that everyone would feel welcoming and comfortable in the classroom.

4.       I would want to introduce myself and the center to the new family to begin forming a great relationship.

5.       I would post language signs around the center so that the new student and family would have assistance in what words or terms we would be referring to or learning about. Even placing words from their country on the word wall so that the current students and staff could be educate on a new culture as well.

I would hope that my preparations would benefit myself in being culturally aware, but also my new and current families and students as well. I would hope that my efforts would allow my center to be ready to accept the new family as one of ours and welcoming them with open arms, hearts, and minds.

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

 

Purposeful, unintentional, implied, or blatant microagressionism can be hurtful to the victim of those thoughts and words. Personally I have experienced multiple situations of microagression, however most of them I do feel the insult was unintended and seen as a friendly “joke”.

My Experience

Growing up and even into adulthood I have experienced racial microagression. It started to feel like regardless of where I went, who I was with, no matter how hard I tried to fit in with my peers I got the same burning question asked…” What are you?” I am put aback by this rude question every time I am faced with it. “What are you?” What exactly are they asking me, do they mean who am I, all these feelings run through my mind, yet I end with the same result… just let it go Frances, they don’t mean it in a rude or mean way. Coming from a mixed culture and being a Mixed-American, I was never black enough, white enough, or even Native American enough to truly be accepted by either of the groups. Now, however, I began to realize the questions were paired with comments such as, “your hair is so pretty, your skin tone is beautiful, I wish I looked like you,” but my listening normally stopped right after they asked that dreaded question, “What are you?” I have opened my heart, mind, and ears to understanding the people are asking questions to get to know me better and see if they can relate more to me as a person, they are not asking to hurt my feelings or make me feel like I am a “What” rather than a “who”.

 I being from southern Louisiana and from a predominately white demographic area, I have experienced out right racism, while also experiencing microagression. After learning about microagression I am now able to understand more clearly that some statements or words do not have to be meant or intended to hurt or be rude. I can now relax a little and listen to the rest of the conversation before shutting down and getting offended.