Peaceable classrooms build the capacity of youth to manage and resolve conflict on their own by learning to:
Understand and analyze conflict.
Understand peace and peacemaking.
Recognize the role of perceptions and biases.
Identify feelings.
Identify factors that cause escalation.
Handle anger and other feelings appropriately.
Improve listening skills.
Improve verbal communication skills.
Identify common interests.
Brainstorm multiple options that address interests.
Evaluate the consequences of different options.
Create a win-win agreement.
Faculty Create A Cooperative Environment
Cooperative learning creates a context for the constructive resolution of conflicts. It also reduces the factors that place students at risk for using violence, such as poor academic performance (with an inability to think decisions through) and alienation from schoolmates. Cooperative learning, compared with competitive or individualistic learning, results in higher academic achievement and increased use of higher level reasoning strategies, more caring and supportive relationships, and greater self-esteem.
Negotiating To Solve the Problem.
It is not enough to tell students to "be nice," or "talk it out," or "solve your problem." They must be taught specific procedures for resolving conflicts.
The Problem-Solving Negotiation Procedure
Describe what you want. "I want to use the book now." This involves using good communication skills and defining the conflict as a small and specific mutual problem.
Describe how you feel. "I'm frustrated." Disputants must understand how they feel and communicate it accurately and unambiguously.
Describe the reasons for your wants and feelings. "You have been using the book for the past hour. If I don't get to use the book soon, my report will not be done on time. It's frustrating to have to wait so long." This step includes expressing cooperative intentions, listening carefully, separating interests from positions, and differentiating before trying to integrate the two sets of interests.
Take the other's perspective and summarize your understanding of what the other person wants, how the other person feels, and the reasons underlying both. "My understanding of you is . . . ." This includes understanding the perspective of the opposing disputant and being able to see the problem from both perspectives simultaneously.
Invent three optional plans to resolve the conflict that maximize joint benefits. "Plan A is . . . . Plan B is . . . . Plan C is
. . . ." These are creative optional agreements that maximize the benefits for all disputants and solve the problem.
Choose the wisest course of action and formalize the agreement with a handshake. "Let's agree on Plan B!" A wise
agreement is fair to all disputants, maximizes joint benefits, and strengthens disputants' ability to work together
cooperatively and resolve future conflicts constructively. It specifies how each disputant should act and how the
agreement will be reviewed and renegotiated if it does not work.