Exploring roles in the ECE community: Local and State Level

I currently live in North Carolina. Here they have a state funded preschool program for children the year before they enter kindergarten called NC Pre-K. I was a teacher in a NC Pre-K classroom for three years, but now I would love to work in the administrative side. Where we live right now the organization that oversees the classrooms in this county is called Onslow County Partnership for Children. I would love to work for this organization to help ensure all the children are receiving a high quality education at all the centers. 

Another organization would be New Beginnings Child Care centers. I was able to observe this center during my last class, Planning and Managing an Early Child Care Center. I was very impressed with their set-up and their devotion to the well-being and safety of the children. 

I also would like to work for the NAEYC in North Carolina. This is such a great organization and so important in the early childhood field. They are making a difference at child care centers and in policies and I would love to be a part of it. 

I am not currently working or looking for a job. My husband is currently training for his third deployment and with two kids at home and a third on the way I think it is important for me to be home to provide security for them. There are many skills that I will need to work for all these organizations. I need to have the education which I am working on by completing my Master's degree. I also need to have strong organizational skills, time management, and ability to work with a diverse range of people. I work to continue to build and enhance these skills through volunteering until I decide to return to the work force.

Week 6

I worked in several different groups in different classes when I was getting my Bachelor's degree. I also have been a part of some small group discussions during trainings. The one that was the hardest to leave was my one class in college where we were a part of the group for the entire class. Almost every assignment was done as a group so we had a lot of time to get to know each other and became close. Luckily, many of these people were in the same degree program so we would still have classes together, but it was not the same as when we were working together. I can still remember one group session at a training that I was so thankful when it was over. We were split up into small groups at a training where we had to discuss and review our literature to answer some questions and then we would share with the whole group. We had one member who felt she had to disagree on every point and was very rude in her disagreements. By the end we had to just override all of her disagreements and write down what the rest of the group agreed on just in order to finish our task to share with the whole group at the the training. While we were sharing our answers she would yell out what she thought it should be. It was very embarrassing and frustrating. We could have had good discussions and learned from each other's different views and perspectives, but she was not willing to listen to other viewpoints and her manner of insisting that she was right made it difficult to listen. 

I do not think I have ever had any closing rituals in any of the groups that I was in and I am not even sure what I would consider for a closing ritual.

I think adjourning is an important stage of teamwork because it brings a closure to the group and helps to show an accomplishment. The adjourning stage from my group in my college class was when we received our final grade. This helped us see our work together had meaning and was productive. The adjourning phase for the other group during the training session was when we shared our answers for the rest of the group. It provided an ending to the discussion and allowed us to move on to the next part of the training. 

Week 5

I had an issue with a supervisor who had recently started at the center. Within her first week she had given us a list of things she wanted changed in our classroom because she said they would not pass ECCER-S even though the classroom had just passed the year before with the exact same set-up. There was no discussion involved and she did not receive our input before she gave us the list and told us we had a week to fix everything. My co-teacher and I tried to discuss the issues and explain our reasoning why we did not feel anything needed to be changed especially since there was only a month left in the school year. We were told that she was the supervisor and we were being insubordinate by questioning. I should have used the NVC skills to help me through the situation by not taking it personally. I felt that by her saying the classroom was wrong she was questioning mine and my co-teacher's abilities. I let my annoyance and frustration with this situation affect my interactions with her in the future and I never built a relationship with her. Without this relationship there was never a sense of working together and I continued to feel that any issues were a personal attack. I chose to leave this center because I always felt there was conflict. Looking back, I should have worked harder to communicate. 

Has anyone else had an issue with a supervisor? Were you able to resolve these conflicts and if so what skills did you use to accomplish this.

Week 4

My score for communication anxiety was higher than the scores from the two people who evaluated me. This one surprised me because I get very nervous talking in front of groups and leading presentations. Once I start talking I am usually able to relax, but before I always feel sick. I thought this was obvious. However one of the evaluators is a person who observes me leading presentations so I was shocked that she doesn't notice how nervous I really am. My verbal aggressiveness was very close to one evaluator and higher than another and my listening style was exactly the same as both evaluators. 

I learned through the discussion post this week how easy it is to make assumptions based on appearance. There is no way to know a person exactly just by looking at them, yet we use previous knowledge and stereotypes to form judgments. I think it is part of human nature to do this, yet we must not allow these assumptions to affect our communication. We have to be able to look beyond our first impression to learn more about people.

I also learned that we can be harder evaluators on ourselves. When I was discussing the results with a person I was surprised that they were unaware of my anxiety when talking in front of groups and she said I always appear relaxed and confident and am an excellent presenter. I thought it always showed, yet apparently not. I am not sure I will ever be able to completely relax before talking in front of people, yet it helps to know that people think I am a good presenter.   

Week 3

I definitely communicate differently with people from different groups. The way I talk to my friends is completely different than how I speak and what I talk about with my dad and my grandparents. Also the topics that I talk about vary depending on who I am talking with. My friends that have kids we talk a lot about topics regarding the stages our children are in and our conversations are more family oriented. I have a few friends from high school and college that do not have children so I do not talk to them as much about my kids. Our conversations are usually about their jobs or the parties that they have been to because that is definitely not a part of my life much anymore so I like to say I am living through them. I think it also depends on the setting because I have many friends from church and our conversations do slightly differ when we are talking at church rather than at a house where we are more comfortable and can share more. If I do not know someone I almost have to force myself to talk to them because I am so shy and I do not always know what to say. 

Even though I do not have much interaction with people from different cultures, I know I do act differently mainly because I am nervous and unsure of how to act. I once met a family from Burma and their accent was really hard to understand. I know I did act as appropriately as I should have because it was hard to understand them and I was worried about offending them by saying or doing something wrong. I know my nervousness made the situation more uncomfortable. 


I need to work on moving out of my comfort zone and build relationships with people who are from different groups with different hobbies and different cultures. In these cases I can ask questions to find some similarities, but also embrace the differences because we can learn from each other. This class is showing me how important communication is with others to grow as a person.

Watching a television show-Week 2

The book talked about the show The Big Bang Theory a few times and I have never seen it so I chose that show. I watched the first episode. 

At first I honestly could not tell what the relationship was between the two main characters, Leonard and Sheldon. When I saw they lived together I thought they might be a couple. Though when I watched their nonverbal language when they first met Penny, I started to question if they were gay because they both acted nervous. After I watched it with sound I realized they were just friends. It was interesting to see Sheldon's behavior when Penny sat on the couch when there was no sound. At first I thought he was acting so weird because she was staying and he was nervous having a girl there or scared to sit next to her. Once I watched it with sound I realized it was all because she sat in what he considered to be his spot. When Raj met Penny it was very obvious he was nervous around girls. His whole body seemed to tense and his mouth just seemed to glued shut. I could also tell that Howard was trying to hit on Penny though I thought she might be reciprocating the feelings because when they were riding in a car sitting beside each other she was smiling really big. Even after watching it with sound it was hard to tell how she was feeling because she never actually brushed him off, but I do not think she was feeling the same towards him. At one point, Penny's ex-boyfriend was in the episode, but I could not figure out who he was until I watched it with sound. He was in one scene and based off of something Leonard and Sheldon said to him, he took their pants. This part was very confusing until I watched it with sound. 

It was really hard watching the show with no sound. I did not know who the people were or really have any idea what was going on. Without the sound I did have to focus more on body language and facial expressions so I did have to watch more closely than I normally do when I watch television. I hardly ever watch tv, but when I do I am usually trying to do other things at the same time. When I watched the show the second time with sound, I found I paid attention more because I was so curious about what had actually happened in the scenes. If this had been a show I normally watched it would have been much easier because I would have known who the people were and what they were probably saying to each other. I definitely realized that we can not make judgments based on nonverbal cues alone and I have a whole new appreciation of being able to hear.

Week 1

My brother is a very effective communicator in daily life. He is always very at ease in any situation and with any person. He is able to talk to anyone he meets. His profession is a salesman so this ability helps him. I would like to model some of my own communication behaviors after him because I am a naturally shy person and I do not always feel comfortable talking to new people. It is sometimes hard when meeting new families building that relationship because I struggle to communicate and connect. I wish I had more of his confidence and ability to strike up conversations with everyone.