Purgeport II

There is no “I” in team.
We’ve all heard this expression.
Certainly there is more to know about teamwork than “two heads are
better then one” or “the collective sum is greater than the sum of the parts”. In fact, group dynamics and team dynamics is
a large very large field of study.

ADLT 612 should be an interesting and at times very
challenging course. As team members we
all bring something different to the table with regard to skills, strengths,
weaknesses and personal perspective. As
members of a randomly chosen team, I wondered what the team learning curve
would look like as we work to integrate our life perspectives and approaches to
problem solving.

My own background is one of self reliance. My time in the
military taught me how to function well with a team, but our goals and mission
were always clear and defined for us. Aside from this military experience, I have
limited experience working in a team. I’ve
spend most of my life learning to not rely on others and looking out for number
one.

In our first ADLT 612 course…I recall being in an EMS/EMT
course years ago. During the second or third
week of class we had to pick a course partner.
Our instructor stressed to us the importance of this choice… how we
would work with and rely on our class partners through the course and during
state testing after the course was completed.
How our success would be affected by this choice and that we needed to
take it seriously. I remember looking around
the room, paying attention to who was paying attention, watching to see who was
listening and listening to see who was hearing what was being said. I chose a partner and we spent the next 13
weeks, two times a week, four hours per meeting, working together. One week before the final exam, the
instructor reassigned us all to different partners. She felt that we might learn best with those
who we chose to partner with, but as a class, as a team, we must all be able to
work together, regardless of what baggage we carry, perspective we bring or
worries we have. As I went to through the
testing with this new partner we bonded very quickly and succeeded in the
testing. As a team, the class celebrated
our victory over the state practicals.

My memory from the EMT course helped me to embrace team
YellowBirds with enthusiasm and knowing that we, as a team, will succeed in our
endeavors.

Cheers to a new semester.