The Director of Sumedha Centre, Jose
Parappully PhD, was invited to do another workshop for the teachers of the secondary
section of South City International
School
Last year the theme of the Workshop was “Enhancing
Institutional Effectiveness.” This year the Workshop focused on one of the
significant dynamics that contribute to Institutional Effectiveness, namely,
Relational (Communication) Networks.
Accordingly, the workshop was labelled
“Enhancing Interpersonal Communication.”
Of the 48 participants this year, 15 had joined the school since the last workshop. Hence, the facilitator briefly referred to
the concepts explored last year to acquaint the new teachers with these
foundational concepts. He then introduced Howard Gardner’s concept of Personal
Intelligences and their role in effective interpersonal relationships and
communication.
A major obstacle to effective interpersonal
relationships is unaddressed conflicts. Teachers were helped to discern current
conflicts between Management and Teachers and conflicts among themselves and
introduced to tools that help address and work through conflicts in an effective
and helpful manner.
The focus of exploration on the second day
of the Workshop was Interpersonal Relationships among the teachers. The role of
Assertive Communication was pointed out and teachers were helped to understand
and practise it in a series of experiential exercises.
Video clips, songs, introspection and group
interaction and processing were some of the tools used, besides insights from
organisational psychology presented by the facilitator.
Teachers found the Workshop very useful to
enhance their interpersonal and, consequently, work relationships. The Workshop
especially provided them, they observed, opportunity to come to understand more
deeply one another and the issues that affect them, which in turn has
contributed to increased desire to work toward greater cohesion and
collaboration.
