Saturday, September 10, 2011

Conflict Resolution in the School - My Reflections

In our little way in the school, we have our ways of resolving conflicts though no formal instruction is designed for conflict resolution strategies.

In the classroom, we an understanding that if a misunderstanding occurs between two students and they are unable to mutually agree on a settlement amongst themselves, they should agree on a arbiter from among the other students to mediate between them.

This method has been very successful in resolving conflicts among students and it is only in cases where the arbiter is unable to effect a settlement that I come in and try guiding the parties to the conflict to a settlement.

It is a standing rule that no student must fight another student, and fortunately, no misunderstanding has ever degenerated into physical combat.

With the knowledge I have thus acquired from this programme, I intend however, to create a learning activity for the school which will be based on the process curriculum approach. The learning activities will be designed to teach students the various key skills and competencies needed for effective conflict resolution.

When mediating in a conflict between students, I usually first appeal to their shared interests and the benefits they stand to derive from maintaining friendly relations. After listeniung to both parties, I then go on to highlight the points of agreement I could see from their statements before now moving on to find ways of guiding them to navigate through their conflict through asking them to make compromises.

It works well because after each person has stated the compromises he/she is willing to make, we have some strong foundation to use to end whatever stalemate they had.

2 comments:

  1. Ibrahim,

    Involvement of all school members is a good idea. Are other teachers in agreement with implementing a school-wide initiative for handling conflict? There are probably many adults that would benefit from some training as well.

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  2. Being the Head Instructor, I am in a good position to influence other instructors to buy into the idea. As we go along, I'd also look into possibility of involving local youths and interested elders. If everyone can be involved, it will certainly have a big effect

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This work by Ibrahim K. Oyekanmi (mallamibro@gmail.com) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.