Interpersonal Conflict: Please leave me alone!!!!

People are different. They think differently. They act differently. Where there are differences, conflicts arise. So interpersonal conflicts are inevitable but it still hurts when they occur.

My experience of a serious interpersonal conflict with someone occurred when I went to a primary school to relief teach right after my ‘A’s. I got along well with the kids and everything was smooth sailing until one fateful Friday afternoon.

On that Friday, the kids had been exceptionally fast with their work and since we were ahead of schedule, I had given them some free time. Coincidently, some of the upper primary school boys were playing soccer in the field that was situated right outside my classroom. Some of the kids got excited by the activity outside and gathered around the window to watch the game. Since the noise level was low and it was their free time anyway I let them be. Unfortunately, one of the senior teachers in the school happened to walk by. She stopped in her tracks, stomped into my class and started shouting at the kids. I was momentarily taken aback. She reprimanded the kids for not behaving during class time and subtly accused me of not controlling the kids well enough. All in all it was an embarrassing situation. However, it did not end there. Thereafter whenever, the teacher saw me, she would impose on me and explicitly teach me how to handle the kids.

The underlying problem I soon came to realize was our differences in opinion as to how to handle the kids. She preferred an authoritarian style, while I preferred more freedom. I resented the fact that she imposed on me and I felt helpless as I was forced to do things in a way I did not like. Still I tried to be fair and put myself in her shoes. I was able to understand her fear that a newbie like me may not be disciplining the kids enough or that I was being complacent in my teaching but it still took the pleasure out of my teaching experience.

If you had been in such a situation, what would you have done? How would you have approached her? Can talking solve differences in opinion?

Effective communication skills – To speak or not to?

Hey Everyone. Let me start my entry by saying that this has definitely happened or will happen sometime along the course of our lives. This situation where you speak to someone and desperately try to convey an idea over to them but they never seem to get it. If you are thinking been there, done that, then you are not alone. I have been suffering as such lately at my lab. What I did before was to blame my mentor saying “Oh well. This person never understands me so maybe we are just not on the same wavelength so lets ignore it and move on!”

That was when the title of this course caught my eye as it popped up in my NUS mail. The mere words “Effective communication skills” opened up a whole new can of worms. A lot of what ifs started cropping up in my mind. What if the problem was with the way I communicated my ideas? What if my non verbal cues were so putting off that the other person was uncomfortable discussing the topic with me?

In the span of the 2 lessons we have had, many interesting concepts have been discussed. For example, the idea of a personal filter is something I never would have placed importance on when communicating with someone before, however, I understand how critical it is now. I am now able to appreciate the way a second person may interpret or view things I say based on their own filter. This has added a whole new dimension to my life and I guess I will always view the conversations I have with people hereafter differently.

Having looked at all the communication channels, personally I feel that I have always had difficulty in verbal face to face communication situations. In terms of the communication skills, the encoding and decoding parts have always been the trickiest. I always fear the situations where you have just briefed someone on a bit of information and this person looks at you with a bright smile, nodding like he understood everything you said, yet there is a gnawing feeling in the back of your mind that he did not get half of what you said or the other situations when you hesitate to approach someone because you fear you may be overreacting to what they said. So hopefully learning some effective communication skills will help me communicate better in the future and be a more confident individual. Lastly, lets also not forget how helpful this module will be when our prospective interviewer decides we get the job right after reading our application letter or when we sweep them off their feet at the interview so to say...

Adios for now.