Conflict Experience


An experience that I’ve learned from involves a disrespectful encounter with another staff member on my algebra 1 team, for which I am the lead.  The incident occurred when this staff member was making conversation with me at the copier, and indicated they were having trouble with a certain student.  I offered some input on what works best for me when handling these kinds of student issues, and tried to leave it at that.  The teacher became immediately defensive, indicating that my methods were no good and that they wouldn’t work with this student.  This student happens to have a good relationship with me and regularly comes afterschool to my coach class for help with their work.  This other teacher was very upset to learn that I had been helping this student at my coach class and became very angry with me.  This teacher began to yell in my face and included some statements attacking my age, among other completely unprofessional things.  I remained quiet and the teacher walked away.  This was an incident that took several days to address and resolve with our administration.  With some discussion, the teacher did apologize and we came to an understanding with how they should address some class management problems by collaborating with each other to come up with ideas to put a plan in place.  I am happy that we resolved this issue and are now back to operating on a team where we resect each other and feel comfortable in our work environment without any unnecessary conflict. 

The way that my classes are set up must be in small sections where the activities are broken up and allow for different types of engagement with the content. Especially with my population, lecturing for more than 5-10 minutes is ineffective.  I try to  limit my own speaking to this amount of time, and try to break up the lesson in a cycle of short bits of instruction to activities and back over again.  This is not something unusual or extra beyond a regular lesson.  This kind of format is just standard for my students, especially for maximizing engagement.  This allows them a chance to apply the learning to something beyond just taking notes or filling out organizers.  This type of lesson format also allows the students to apply their learning quicker to build more substantial connections.  Especially in math, the content can seem so obscure, to the point where it doesn’t really make sense until you can use it or try an activity.   I see this helping to improve student questions and allows me good time to assess their understanding to work in clarification as needed.

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