PEACEKIDZ

The Inspiration

What happens when a respected Conflict Management guru throws down the gauntlet, challenging his students to adapt the principles and practices they have learned in their graduate studies to a curriculum addressing the everyday conflicts of elementary school students?  There is an overwhelming response.  Seven students eager to apply their knowledge, to learn more about the community beyond their graduate school and to learn from forty odd bright smiling sixth graders from all over the globe respond with enthusiasm.  After Dr. Zartman presented the idea of utilizing the immense talents and resources of the Conflict Management program at SAIS in a practical and fun prevention exercise our group quickly coalesced.  In the beginning we were Dorthe, Kate, Wendy, Sophie, Helen, Kelli and Jill but shortly the last would leave us to be replaced eventually by our lone guy, Steve. 

Our ideas were numerous and experiences abundant, but in the end it would be our passion and sheer enjoyment of a project so different than the long research papers and harrowing economics exams we were accustomed to at SAIS that would propel us rapidly forward toward the unique challenge of managing conflicts over borrowed pencils and sixth grade gossip. 

First Steps

Dr. Zartman’s inspiration for beginning an outreach conflict management education program at SAIS brought us together first for a few brief meeting in the fall of 2002.  Our initial goals were to research existing programs and adapt our own knowledge of conflict prevention and management into a curriculum relevant to a middle school classroom.  We decided upon fifth and sixth graders as our target audience for several reasons: 1) This is an important transition time between elementary school and junior high when many new challenges arise; 2) Kids in this age group tend to be mature enough to grasp some difficult concepts, yet still open to new ideas; 3) We had a contact in a middle school in Alexandria that proved to be the perfect place to test our efforts.

After scouring DC libraries and the internet for ideas on teaching conflict management in schools, we began to develop a framework for our course.  We identified three themes around which the course would be structured: 1) What is Conflict? 2) Attitudes and Awareness; 3) and Resolving Conflicts.  We divided into pairs and each focused on preparing three lessons centered around one of the themes.  Kate and Sophie took upon the challenge of defining the stages of conflict; Wendy and Kelli highlighted the importance of emotions and communication; and Dorthe and Helen developed lessons on problem solving, mediation and other conflict resolution techniques. 

The Origins of ‘PeaceKidz’

About this time we began to ponder our true identity.  What name could possibly capture this essence of our group?  One late, almost delirious, night in the Nitze cafeteria after tossing around such names as Conflict Management Kids or Kids Resolving Conflict we at last decided upon: Peace Kids.  After a few minutes thought we changed the spelling to PeaceKidz with a “Z” in honor of Dr. Zartman.

This would prove only the beginning of our discussions over identity.  Kate can attest to sleepless nights over trying to find words to fit the acronym S-T-A-R in an attempt to develop our slogan – which eventually became RECOGNIZE – RESPECT –RESOLVE each word describing one of the chosen themes.  Later, our last design decision would be the logo, again debated for days.  Our final choice was a simple peace sign carefully traced by Dorthe and transposed onto the covers of the uniquely PeaceKidz workbooks designed by Kate and Steve.

Creating workbooks provided us with a means of organization and a space for originality.  We included worksheets and vocabulary lists tailored to each lesson.  Many of these activities were either altered, or entirely forgotten in the process of teaching the classes.  However, the workbooks would also prove an important prop for our classes, something the kids could pick up at the beginning of class, decorate with rainbow colors, sixth-grade drawings and funny sayings. 

As Kate and Steve developed the workbook, Helen and Dorthe began compiling a teacher’s manual complete with full lesson plans for each class, a list of resources and a section for comments – lessons learned as we went along.  We believed it was important to measure our impact, something that appeared difficult in a first attempt to teach these somewhat abstract concepts.  Wendy designed a brief evaluation survey that we administered the first day of class, along with a ‘conflict scenario’ we acted out for the kids and sought comments on.  Our hope was that by the end of the semester the kids’ responses on each would reflect a greater understanding of conflict and the other concepts we introduced, as well as using a new vocabulary when observing a conflict situation.

Francis C. Hammond Middle School

Amidst the process of developing the course we were also in search of a classroom in which to test our ideas.  We were incredibly fortunate to discover Rebecca Reid and Francis C. Hammond Middle School.  Rebecca, the wife of a fellow SAIS student, was a sixth-grade English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher in Alexandria.  Along with Kay Marshall, Becky agreed to allow seven somewhat inexperienced graduate students run of her classroom for two hour every Tuesday afternoon – attempting to instill enthusiastic students with new ideas about recognizing conflict, healthy communication and developing strategies for conflict resolution.  In just a few short weeks, permission from the principal was granted and to our amazement our simple idea was moving quickly forward.

An ESL classroom proved to be the perfect place to begin.  These students faced greater than average challenges when interacting with the mainstream students, often expressing a sense of being “outsiders”.  At the same time they had a strong sense of community with their fellow ESL students; they were a bright, spirited and (generally) eager to learn group of kids.  Further, although we only briefly touched upon international conflicts, many of these students had witnessed internal strife in their countries of origin adding a unique dimension to some of our conversations.

Our Curriculum

In developing our curriculum we turned to our academic work in conflict management, our personal experiences, and the knowledge of other organizations working in elementary-level conflict resolution.  Based upon the themes alluded to earlier we designed nine lesson plans filled with activities, role plays, worksheets, games and the occasional lecture all centered on teaching basic conflict management techniques.  Our lessons varied from identifying the stages of conflict in a popular movie to doing simple yoga poses and practicing relaxation techniques. 

Throughout the process the themes would evolve, turning in unanticipated directions as we adjusted to the situations of the students we were working with.  Attitudes and awareness became an all-encompassing section on identifying and communicating emotions, and remaining alert to the feelings of those around you.  We often found that we did not have enough time to get to all of the information related to these topics. With one or more extra lessons we may have included a more comprehensive lesson on attitudes, examining concepts such as discrimination in more detail.  At the end, the success of our lesson on mediation indicated that further exploration of other conflict resolution strategies would have been a useful exercise as well.

In the Classroom

As we walked to the DuPont Metro station on the first day of class, all of us were disbelieving – we were beginning to teach already?  Despite the short timeline and our own apprehensions the first class was a success.  We introduced ourselves, engaged the kids with an icebreaker, began to learn their names (Heidi Honey, Abu Avocado, Cael Carrot, Ernesto Egg) and discovered how to best connect with them. 

After our great beginning, the chaotic days of mid-February 2003 set in.  Class two was cancelled due to a school-wide terrorism drill, and then again because of the blizzard that immobilized the region for nearly a week.  Eventually we began again and with a few weeks of double the class were able to catch up to our original schedule. 

Our first day of teaching conflict management concepts featured the “locked-up” game.  This activity became representative of the learning we would do over the semester.  Our first attempt to tie a usually energetic boy, and an often quiet girl together each in search of their own candy proved a relative failure.  We had yet to understand the dynamic of sixth grade, the relations between boys and girls and the interests of each.  The activity taught us to think about our lesson plans differently, to identify games and worksheets that would interest the students and those that may be less successful – leaving us with the eternal question, “Will this activity work?”

The activities of the first day also highlighted another important distinction, each of our two classes learned in different ways.  The first section was more outgoing, sometimes restless and given to confronting their teachers with challenging demands.  The second section was subdued, they were less cohesive and not as easily engaged by certain activities.  One simple strategy we devised to balance the situation was to always have the first group sitting at their desks, while the second group appeared to learn better when they were seated in a circle on the carpet.  Throughout the semester other circumstances would arise in which we would adapt lessons and activities differently to each class – an important lesson of teaching we will all remember. 

PeaceKidz 2003

In the end our experiences with PeaceKidz 2003 was very positive.  Each lesson demonstrated again the importance of our Conflict Management studies while also imparting practical lessons on teaching, learning, relating to sixth graders and working together.  Our group found a careful balance, always dividing up tasks equally and communicating regularly via email.  Even amidst mid-term exams and endless winter colds we always had at least two teachers in front of each class with a comprehensive plan for the day.  Although each day held surprises, and we occasionally walked out of the school frustrated with the behavior of the kids, or the failure of an activity, the class was generally a great success.  Our final exam demonstrated that the vast majority of kids understood the basics of conflict, and could identify different ways of addressing conflict situations.  On the last day, Mrs. Reid stated that although conflicts remained frequent she had often observed the students being more aware of the other person in a conflict situation and even the occasional peer mediator intervening to clarify perceptions and bring resolution.  However, perhaps more gratifying than even this were the big smiles of the kids on our last day and ultimately the requests that we return again for seventh grade…

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