Conflict Strategies

In the beginning of the current school year, I encountered a small colleague on my job that I had difficulty overcoming. I have an assistant as well as a one to one mentor with me in my classroom. There was a lot of mix up because it was confusion about “roles”. The mentor was completing assistant duties and my assistant began to get upset which caused horrible tension in the room. I can honestly say that I was in a difficult position. When it began to affect my students and the atmosphere of the classroom, I knew that something had to be done. I took it upon myself to reach out to both parties and come u with a compromise. This action took a few weeks to complete. Slowly but surely things began to work themselves out. I started to be specific when I needed certain things to be done. I started to figure out ways to not let them figure decisions out because they were both headstrong. As soon as I began to implement tactics to reduce confusion, everything fell into place. I often used the Escapist Strategy. Avoiding direct conflict was perfect. I began not to care to listen to the comments they made about each other, and they noticed, so they would stop. I also found that Cooperative Strategies also worked. Whenever something positive would happen, I would be sure to praise them both as well as include them in on the situation. This created a better atmosphere most of the time. My situation has improved tremendously and through reading the course materials, I have found more ways to implement conflict resolution strategies.