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Conflict Resolution in the Classroom:
A Curriculum Project
Sandry Kalmakoff and Jeanne Shaw are two staff members of the
School Peacemakers Education Project. They developed and taught
Peer Conflict Resolution Through Creative Negotiation, a
curriculum for grades four through six. A curriculum guide, which
includes detailed lesson plans, is available at a nominal cost.
To order, contact the Peace Education resource Centre, 28 – 6th
Street, New Westminster, B.C. V3L 2Y8; telephone 522–1123.
Q: What is the School Peacemakers Education Project?
SK: The School Peacemakers Education Project was designed
to train a couple of people as conflict resolution consultants in
elementary schools. It developed into a project in which we created
and field–tested a curriculum that had as its focus the process
of negotiation as a technique for conflict resolution.
Q: What is the project’s connection with the Public Education
for Peace Society (PEPS)?
SK: The project is sponsored by PEPS, a citizen’s peace education
group based in New Westminster. It grew out of a previous project
that had been sponsored by PEPS which was a 10 lesson peace education
curriculum that was piloted in Burnaby schools. A part of that curriculum
consisted of three lessons on interpersonal conflict resolution
which went on to show parallels between interpersonal conflict and
global conflict. The response to those three lessons was very positive
on the part of both teachers and students. A lot of teachers said,
“We need more of this. There is a lot of violence on the playground
and in the classroom and we need some kind of tool to work with
students to do something about it”. The second project was
an attempt to address that need.
Q: Where did you pilot the program?
SK: We piloted the lessons in two schools in Burnaby with
grades 4, 5, and 6 students, a total of about 140 students. Over
a period of about 4 1/2 months we met with students twice a week,
40 minutes each time, in groups that ranged from 15 – 26 participants.
Q: How would you describe the curriculum that you designed?
JS: In developing the curriculum, we looked at conflict resolution
and negotiation to determine what main skills students would need
to negotiate. We identified three basic skills — active listening,
anger management techniques and identification of personal feelings.
Those three skills are taught at the outset. The rest of the curriculum
teaches students a step–by–step process of negotiating with each
other to resolve their conflicts. There’s a lot of role playing
in it. It’s fairly active.
SK: The curriculum itself is formated into 30 individual
lesson plans. It’s laid out so that any teacher could pick it up
and start using it.
Q: Although this curriculum is designed specifically for grades
four to six, could it be used at othergrade levels?
SK: It would work extremely well with grade 7 students. With
some adaptation it would also work with younger children.
Q: How did students react to the curriculum?
SK: Some quite enjoyed the learning experience. There were
others that were somewhat resistant to it for a number of reasons.
The curriculum, and particularly the initial lessons, are quite
scary for kids because we ask them to talk about their feelings.
Later on there was, on the part of some, an ambivalent sense about
it. On the one hand, they really wanted to learn how to do this
because they wanted to have an alternative. There was almost an
unspoken hunger for a way to do things differently. So they would
try, and say to somebody (not in the class), “Hey, can we negotiate
this?” and it wouldn’t work because the other person wouldn’t
know what on earth they were talking about. Or they tried it out
before they’d learned all the steps of the process and would meet
with failure. After a few experiences like that, they wanted to
give up on it.
Q: In order for the negotiation process to work, do you have
to have two participants who have been through the program?
SK: No. If you know the process, and if others are willing
to engage in some sort of process with you, then you can suggest
to them, “I know a way we could work this out.” Or by
the kind of questions you ask, you can lead them through the process.
Q: How might a successful negotiation end up with two students
who were in conflict?
JS: A successful negotiation would end up with both students
resolving the conflict with a solution they both feel they’ve had
a part in, and with both of them feeling they’ve got what they need.
SK: The underlying needs that were at the nub of the conflict
have been met. There are no upset feelings left, the problem is
solved and their relationship is once more where they want it to
be. Both students are winners.
Q: How does PEER CONFLICT RESOLUTION THROUGH CREATIVE NEGOTIATION
differ from other curricula on conflict resolution?
JS: It’s different in that it is a progressive step–by–step
process. It has lesson plans that build on each other. It specifically
gives students skills to resolve interpersonal conflicts themselves.
SK: It focuses particularly on the skills of negotiation
and brings a lot of skills together under the structure of negotiation.
Some of the other curricula draw on a variety of skills, but there
is no method to it, so you kind of have to guess about what’s going
to be appropriate in the circumstance.
JS: Also, it brings together feelings, active listening,
anger management and creative negotiation in a unique way.
Q: When you began working with the students, how did you detennine
their skills with regard to negotiation?
JS: Before we started we interviewed all the students. We
asked them questions, such as: “What do you have arguments
about?” “What happens when you argue?” “what
do you do in an argument?” “What would you like to be
able to do better?”
So we went in with the knowledge that some girls (and some boys,
too, but more often in girls) would try to talk things out, but
they had not structure to work within.
Q: How would you rate the students’skills after they had been
exposed to the negotiation process?
SK: There was definite improvement. What we had expected
was that they would learn the actual steps of the negotiation process
that we taught them, that they would know what the skills were and
be able to say how to do it, but that they wouldn’t have integrated
them; therefore, there wouldn’t be any noticeable behaviour change.
What we found instead was that there wasn’t enough time for them
even to learn all the steps very thoroughly, but at the same time
there was quite a bit of evidence, based on reports from teachers
and parents and our own observations, that indicated that some students
at least were trying to do things differently. In other words, there
was a noticeable behaviour change in some students.
Q: In your view, how long would it take for students to thoroughly
integrate the skills?
JS: Initially, for about five months, it would need to be
formally presented. Later on, the teacher could reinforce the concepts
and/or facilitate the situation so that the kids could work it out
on their own. The management technique would be negotiation and
the students would integrate the skills within the year.
Q: What sort of feedback did you get teachers and parents after
you had taught the curriculum?
S: At the end we interviewed all the teachers we had worked
with and also sent home questionnaires to the parents. The teachers’
response was generally positive,. They had seen changes in the ways
students reacted to conflicts in the classroom. Since the students
knew the negotiation process, it took the onus off teachers. They
didn’t have to police conflicts that arose.
Feedback from parents was, on the whole, quite positive. A few said
they hadn’t noticed any change, but they weren’t surprised because
of the short time period involved. Others said they had actually
seen evidence of the skills being used with siblings.
Q: Does it relate in any way to government prescribed curricula?
SK: Yes. It has strong connections with the social studies
curriculum, especially with the citizenship, problem solving and
decision–making skill areas. It also relates to language arts communication
skills. Actually, students have to learn how to manipulate language
quite a bit in order to say things in ways that aren’t blaming and
that can be heard by another person. Some of the students were sounding
quite sophisticated by the end of the program.
Q: Is the curriculum guide going to contain more than lesson
plans?
In addition to the lesson plans, it is going to include an extensive
introductory section, so that somebody with no experience in conflict
resolution can pick it up, read the introduction and get a good
sense of what this curriculum is all about.
Q: Do you have plans to do any further work in the area of conflict
resolution?
SK: Unfortunately, the funding for the project expires at
the end of May, so we will no longer be paid to do this kind of
work. However, Jeanne and I are planning to make ourselves available
as consultants, and we’ll be around to do workshop on the material
that we developed, starting in September.
JS: We’ve learned a lot ourselves in doing this, and we don’t
want to take all the knowledge away with us. We’d really like to
be able to do workshops to spread what we’ve learned, so others
can build on that experience.
The Creative Negotiation Curriculum is available from Public Ecuation
for Peace Society, P.O. Box 2320, New Westminster, B.C., V3L 5A5.
The Curriculum Guide is available for $10.
Published in the Connexions Digest, Volume 11, #2, Winter 1988.
(CX4708)
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