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Vol 107 Number 14 |
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April 1, 2004 |
Conflict resolution: Peer mediations guide fellow students
By Terry McGuire
BELLEVUE — The days of classmates trudging off to the principal’s office to settle ongoing disputes are as old as the three Rs.
But what if there was an alternative? What if a team of older students was available to listen to both sides of an issue and guide the disputants to find solutions?
With that philosophy, Sacred Heart School is out to nip conflicts between students in the bud through mediation teams made up of seventh and eighth graders at the school.
Launched recently, the peer mediation program recognizes that feuding students would be more open to discussing problems and expressing feelings with students they look up to rather than with administrators.
“When you’re with a teacher or principal, you get intimidated and kind of hold back your thoughts,” explained eighth grader Nick Aigner, one of Sacred Heart’s 24 new peer mediators. But “when you’re with other students, I think you can express your feelings a little” better.
Sacred Heart’s seventh and eighth graders recently were trained in resolving conflicts by CRU (Conflict Resolution Unlimited) Institute, a Bellevue-based nonprofit organization that teaches mediation skills to youths and adults.
From those two classes, 12 seventh graders and 12 eighth graders were selected as peer mediators, based on their ability to be “respectful listeners” and their willingness to work on conflicts. Working in teams of two, they’ll meet with disputing students who’ve been referred by teachers and administrators. Situations involving physical violence or threats of it, however, will still be referred to administrators.
“This is not for a conflict between teacher and student,” said Sacred Heart Principal Dr. Carola Wittmann. “It’s always student to student. And it’s a long-term ongoing conflict...not like a one-day thing.”
Wittmann said she saw the need for some kind of conflict resolution when she arrived as principal two years ago.
“I noted a student body that was very bright and also had a lot of conflicts,” she said. Rumors — a breeding ground for conflict — were flying, she said. “And I saw a lot of (students) not being open to another person’s tendencies or shortcomings or strengths.”
Conflict is a part of life, Wittmann said. It’s how you deal with it that makes the difference. Does it turn into road-rage-like violence, or do the two sides try to figure out where the other is coming from?
“We live in a world that’s global, and where wars are being waged because people don’t understand one another,” the principal said. And the solutions began locally — by giving young people the tools to deal with it,” she said.
Sacred Heart is among several Catholic grade schools that have received some form of mediation training recently.
St. Anthony School in Renton has seen a dramatic drop in “bully issues” since it began using trained student mediators through an attorneys-sponsored program called Lawyers and Students Experiencing Resolution, said school counselor Tammy Small.
Stationed on the playground, the mediators, grades 5-8, wear distinctive red t-shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with a bridge symbol so students can seek them out. They then meet with the disputants in a school office.
“When I started last year there was huge friendship-bully issues going on, petty stuff,” Small said. “The petty stuff is about one-half to two-thirds of what it used to be...and discipline notices are about one-eighth of what I had before.”
Sacred Heart’s Wittmann said long-running conflicts typically stem from something that happened way back when and then was allowed to fester. Such as: “‘I haven’t been getting along with him or her since second grade, so why should I try now?,’ that sort of thing,” she said. Then the conflict escalates outside the classroom, where the environment is less controlled, such as at recess, lunch or in the gym, she said.
The peer mediators said listening to both sides enables the disputants to air their problems and then take the next step of arriving at a compromise.
In the mediation session, the disputants sign a contract committing themselves to: solving the problem; not interrupting the other during the session; and telling the truth.
After defining the problem, they discuss it and are asked to come up with solutions. The issue is kept confidential, unless there’s a potential for someone getting hurt.
In practice sessions, “it was hard to stay neutral,” said peer mediator Jourdan Cruz, “because when you’re a mediator you can see an easy solution — but we can only guide them. (So) we try to get them to see these solutions without exactly telling them what an easy solution would be.”
An important part of mediation, said Vice Principal Chuck Secrest, is getting the disputant to describe the problem and then having the mediator restate it so that all sides are clear on what it is. The disputants hopefully develop a “sense of empathy” when they hear what the other is saying, he said.
Cruz, an eighth grader and the school’s student body president, wishes there had been a mediation program in place when he was younger. Back then, he looked up to his brother and other older students as role models, he said, and would’ve felt much more comfortable when them as mediators rather than the teachers.
Fellow peer mediator Isabela Garcia, a seventh grader, said she came from a public school that had a mediation program, and she liked it.
She noted that the types of conflicts can vary by grade level. For instance, while a second grader’s dispute may be over an incident that happened on the playground, like a ball being kicked away, a sixth grader’s dispute may be more image driven, like being excluded from a particular group or clique.
If the dispute is between a fellow seventh or eight graders, a mediation team from the grade not involved is used.
Peer mediator Alex Cameron, a seventh grader, said mediation skills such as examining both sides of an issue will benefit him later in life. “There are a lot of tools I can use,” he noted.
Wittman said the students will leave Sacred Heart armed with conflict resolutions skills that many adults don’t have.
She already has a success story to share. A student recently told her that her “screaming matches” with her parents over her choice of music have been replaced by more civilized discussions because “they’ve learned tools to listen (and) to also make their point.”
Thanks to the support and financial backing of parents, Wittmann said the mediation efforts at Sacred Heart will be renewed each fall when CRU returns to the school to train incoming seventh graders while helping the new eighth graders brush up on their skills.
“This is not a one-time deal,” Wittmann said. “This is going to be what students from Sacred Heart will look like.” n