Farewell and Good Luck!

It has been a pleasure exchanging ideas with you, my colleagues. There is so much passion and love in your writings for children and your profession!

Thank you for sharing your professional experience! I am privileged to have been part of your study group and feel that your expertise has rubbed off on me.

I hope we stay in touch via blogs or emails.

Here is my personal email: mfmariefrance@yahoo.com

All the best!

Marie

As a personal closure to blogging on communication and collaboration, I chose to post a few highlights from my reflection paper. For me, it is important to finish the course and to observe how it affected me. 

In many regards, this class was challenging for me. Taking an honest look at the kind of communicator and leader I am, implied wrestling with the fear of discovering that self-inflicted negative judgments, i.e. not having the courage to speak up or come across as authoritarian rather than authoritative, are true. For the first three weeks, learning about my communication short comings was unsettling since I could run mental movies of past events when I was in uncomfortable communication situations and quickly wanted to think about something more pleasant. 
 

However, this exercise was necessary to raise my awareness on what I need to understand better about myself in order to better communicate. Learning how much schemas and self-perception influence the way one communicates was eye opening. Although I knew that one’s life circumstances impact behavior and emotional balance, further exploring the self was at times overwhelming but I came out of this introspection with greater self-confidence since I gained perspective on my communication skills.  

                                                 It is just perspective!

In the end, this class was more effective than psychotherapy. In a short amount of time, I had to take an emotional journey and dig out those stubborn emotions that want to stay in hiding. On my way back from this journey, I know what I need to do to continue improving my communication skills. In addition, the self-knowledge I gained has made me a happier teacher, able to communicate with children and their families with a lot more confidence, tolerance and compassion.

I would like to end this blog with a quote that Sha-Kevia, one of my classmates, posted on her discussion board (Laureate, Inc., 2013). I also looked up the quote online to find more information about Robbins.

To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.”

  -Anthony Robbins (Goodreads, Inc., 2013)

Reference

Robbins, A., 2013. “Anthony Robbins > Quotes > Retrieved from: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/152284-to-effectively-communicate-we-must-realize-that-we-are-all