Sunday, February 1, 2009

An interpersonal conflict with your supervisor


A few years back, I worked as a relief teacher in a primary school located at Ang Mo Kio. In the school, every teacher is accountable to their head of department (HOD) or supervisor. It is the supervisor’s responsibility to guide new teachers and provide them with any assistance if they face any problem in the school. When I was working in the school, I got to know of a female teacher who was new to the job. I was quite close to this teacher and hence I got to learn about an interpersonal conflict she experienced with her supervisor.

She mentioned that her supervisor was particularly strict with her and would check the books of her students frequently to make sure that she has marked them. Sometimes, the supervisor would also attend her class so as to check her performance. Since she was new to the environment and the job of a primary school teacher was not particularly easy, she found that it was really difficult to handle the students and the workload. To make matters worse, her supervisor was rather harsh towards her and would berate her whenever she did something wrong.

One day, the female teacher broke down in front of me and told me that her supervisor reprimanded her in front of her class, just because she did not marked the corrections that the students did. The teacher felt that her supervisor did not give her any respect in front of her students and had treated her like one of his student and not as a colleague. This incident causes her to lose confidence in herself and she felt that she was unsuitable for the job. After teaching for half a year in the school, she decided to leave the teaching line.

If you were the female teacher, what would you do if your supervisor was particular mean to you and seem to pick on you for every little mistake you had done? From the supervisor’s point of view, how would you guide this new teacher in the spirit of excellence?

5 comments:

  1. Hi Min Min,

    If i'm the female teacher, i would perhaps try to put myself in the supervisor shoes, to try and understand why he is so harsh towards me? Maybe he has a higher authority above him that he has to account to, and thus he has to ensure that his subordinates does their job too.

    However, if i'm the supervisor, i should try to control my temper and guide the new teacher in the best possible way. I should also respect the new teacher, and take the initiative to apologize to her for losing my temper to her in front of the students.

    Cecilia =)

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  2. Hey Min Min,

    I feel that the reason why the supervisor was so strict to the new teacher could be he wanted her to be well-prepared for her teaching career in the future. However, it was the approach the supervisor took to train the new teacher that resulted in this unnecessary conflict. (That is why we must send the management level to Professional communication course!) Perhaps what the supervisor could do to salvage the situation was to apologize and show more patience and more trust in the teacher's competency. There's always a first time for everything.

    Back to the teacher, i feel it is a pity that she left the teaching profession because of the assertive supervisor. What i suggest that she could do was to communicate to the supervisor that she may not perform up to the expectations of the supervisor but she is trying her best. Seek for the supervisor's patience and trust in a tactful manner.

    That said, never forget that the response does not necessarily generate the desired outcome.

    Cheers!

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  3. Hey MinMin
    I believe that the supervisor is too demanding but I guess that is because he wants the her to be a good teacher since she is so new to the profession. I guess if I am the supervisor, I will not embarassed her in front of her students. I will have a face to face talk with her to understand what she really needs and whether she can cope with her work. When the teacher leave the profession, I will try to understand the reason and apologise to her for my harsh tone.

    If I am the teacher, I will not give up my interest because of a small setback. I may ask for a transfer or I may initiate a talk with my supervisor and see whether is there anything else I can improve myself.

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  4. Hi MinMin,

    Even though the supervisor is demanding, I feel that it is because he wants the teacher to do her best for the students. However, I do feel that reprimanding the teacher in front of her students would be counter-intutive.

    If I am the female teacher, I would go to have a face-to-face talk with the head of department. I would first identify his concern about my attitudes such as forgetfulness and slopiness. Next, I will make solutions to overcome his percieved attitudes. For example, I would show him that I would start to make use of a daily planner to combat forgetfulness. Lastly, I would voice out my feelings for what emotions I feel when he reprimanded me in class in front of my students. I would also speak to him that reprimanding me in front of my students would cause me to lose respect from the students. I would then explain that it might be harder to control the class, resulting in more time spent in disciplining the class than the true form of teaching. This combined approach should solve the root of the problem and prevent future incidences from happening again.

    If I am the supervisor, I would do as what Mui Peng has suggested in the previous post.

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  5. My first reaction would be to feel very upset, just like what your teacher friend felt.

    However, Johny made a good point by suggesting that the supervisor may just wanted her to be well-prepared for her teaching career in the future. Johny’s suggestion demonstrates good emotional intelligence. By choosing to believe other's action meant for our good even though the situation seems otherwise, is a good method to manage our emotions.

    Submitting to authority, and always hoping and believing in others (even when circumstances show otherwise) is the trait of an excellent spirit.

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