To adopt a culture of open communication and conflict resolution practices was not easy.

In addition to the rigorous curriculum I implemented in my classroom, I desired to build a conflict-

positive classroom starting in the first week of school. I wanted to make sure that the students were
able to embrace that conflicts happen and that there are positive and adverse ways in dealing with
them. Furthermore, I ensured that the conflict resolution curriculum did not feel forced, because in
the past years of teaching, I have found that students are wary social-emotional curriculum if it is
forced or not well thought-out.
My major goal was to make sure the activities were not ancillary from the daily activities
and projects the students embarked upon. This section unpacks the various activities that my
students participated in, their reflections, and my overarching thoughts on the processes. Some of
these activities proved to be more successful than others in shaping a culture of open
communication and conflict-resolution practices. Nonetheless, there were various epiphanies that
my students and I shared during the activities.

Types of conflicts
In the beginning of the year, I asked 45 students to describe what the word conflict means
to them. The most popular words that came up in their longer responses were:














In December, I asked the same question to mixed results.








When looking at this data, a few items caught my attention. First, when students were
asked to label scenarios to which they engage in conflicts, many students reflected on group
members in greater detail in December than in September. They gave specifics. For example, a
student described a situation in my class, when I was with my group members and we couldn't
agree on an idea. When I tried to share my ideas and [my group] just interrupted me and I will tell
them they need to share the air and they didnt. In September, a few students used just vague
Disagreement 18 times
Problem 8 times
Argument 12 times
Bullying/Fight 4 times
I dont know 1 time
Disagreement 11 times
Problem 8 times
Argument 4 times
Bullying/Fight 4 times
I Dont know 6 times
words when you have a problem wrote one student. A problem stated another. In A few
months later, they were able to articulate specifics within the context of the classroom. Secondly,
students had a better grasp understood on the word conflict. On September 6 students said they
didnt know, and, in December, only one student couldnt describe the word. The second time I
asked the question, their answers were more detailed.
It is significant to note the phrasing of the question could have slanted some of their replies.
In the September, students reflected more on their conflicts with family members and siblings.
This came from the wording of the questions. In September, I asked the question explain a time
when you were in a conflict with a group member, family member, teammate, etc. I narrowed
down that question exclusively to include the phrase group member because of the direction my
research was moving. I wanted to look closer as what styles of conflicts they were having with
their peers in my classroom rather than outside of school. The first time I asked the students, I was
looking for them to describe a conflict inside or outside of school. I intentionally asked because in
beginning of the year because I wanted to see students to be able to give specific examples. My
thinking was that many students, fresh off summer break, would not be able to recollect from their
previous year. Phrasing this question in two separate ways could have slanted the data. Even still,
both times the students described conflict; they used great detail and were able to identify the
situation clearly. This was my goal in both instances.
Once students were familiarized themselves with the language surrounding conflicts in
September, I wanted to explore a few activities to create a culture of a open communication and
conflict resolution. The first was the first week of school.

Activity 1: Breaking Balloons
This activity was from adapted text Teaching Students to be Peacemakers (Johnson, D. W.,
& Johnson, R. T. (1995). The purpose for me was to have the students participate in this activity to
structure academic controversies. (Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T., (1995). The purpose of
creating academic controversies is to they are viewing issues from a variety the opposing position
while rebutting attacks on their own position, viewing the issue from a variety of perspectives and
creating a integration of opposing positions (Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T., 1995, 2:21).
In the first week of school, I conducted an academic controversy mentioned in the
Teaching Students to Be Peacemakers. The students were in a large room and divided into teams
by colors. The goal was to pop as many balloons from the other team. The reason was two-fold.
First, I wanted to see how each of the students interacted with one another early on in the school
year. The second was to have the students reflect on their behavior not just in the moment, but how
it connects to how they handle themselves in conflicts. They had to reflect on the following
questions:










What were your feelings? How do aggression,
defense, defeat and victory all feel?
What strategies did you use to attack others?

What strategies did you use to defend yourself?

What I observed
I have to admit, I was petrified to introduce this activity. It was out of my comfort zone and
broke tradition with my teaching practice for many reasons. First, I typically like to predict the
results of what the students are going to act like in unstructured activities. Secondly, I was scared
that a student was going to get hurt either physically or emotionally. I didnt know if I was ready
tackle that obstacle so early on in the year. Lastly, this was my first year teaching seventh grade
and I only had met these students a few days prior to launching this activity. We went into a large
multi-purpose room, known as the commons. I deliberated on whether to conduct the activity
outside because I did have access to a large, open field. I decided on the commons because I knew
that the students could have controlled chaos, rather than a free-for-all outside. It enclosed the
students and the more aggressive students were not running wild as if they were on a soccer field.
Rather, there was a sense of respect in an inside space. On the other hand, the commons has high
ceilings and the noise was excruciating for many students, and myself.

Teacher observation
As I anticipated, my initial observation was that the students who broke the most balloons
were the most aggressive. They were mostly high-energy boys who were more athletic. Also as
expected, the less competitive students were out first. However, it was when I looked at the video
later on in the year, I noticed an underlying pattern. It was after sifting through the self-assessment
data of animal identifiers, I noticed that many students were exhibiting their animal identifying
qualities. The students who consistently identified themselves as turtles were often attacked first
and, therefore, the first students out. Not surprising because they have little concern for task
completion. On the opposite end, students who identified themselves as sharks were the more
aggressive and would attack other students.
I likewise noticed some of the students who have identified themselves as foxes grouped
themselves with other students. The smoothing bears were also quickly to exit the activity. My
thinking around this is that they wish to avoid conflict, so they did not try that hard. True to form,
bears prioritize relationships over tasks. The students who most often identified themselves as
problem-solving owls formed alliances with the stronger students. The winner in both classes was
a student who identified himself or herself as an owl.




Student Reflection
The students understood to believe balloon-popping activity was a team building exercise
used in the beginning of the year. This activity further helped create an environment that
encourages students to understand that it is acceptable to communicate their thoughts and feelings
during conflicts. Lastly this activity laid the groundwork for opening the lines of communication
and showed my students handle their behaviors and feelings when conflicts arise.

Activity 2: Understanding My Anger
When students gets angry at other people, the results can be either constructive or
destructive (Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T., 1995, 6:1). In creating a culture of open
communication and conflict resolution practices, it is paramount for students to identify anger and
make sure that it is handled constructively.
About a month into the school year, I saw students regularly use the language of shark,
bear, turtle, etc. It was important for me to have a common language in creating a classroom
culture, still one issue that kept resurfacing. I found the students were beginning to reflect on their
behavior, but a number of them were not articulating why they chose certain animal
characteristics. Creating a culture of communication in my classroom, I recognized that the
students needed to become more cognizant of when they are angry.
This activity was also adapted from Teaching Students to be Peacemakers. Identifying
anger is a vital step in the conflict resolution process, so I addressed it early on.
I have found that students misuse the term anger. It often masks in other distinctive
emotions. In looking at their surveys, I have pointed out that some of those include: frustration,
stress, or feeling left out.
The purpose of conducting this activity had three major purposes. First, I wanted strengthen
students abilities to be reflective about their own emotions. This further reinforces creating a safe
space for students to safely share their thoughts and emotions. Secondly, I wanted to safeguard that
students would be aware when they are engaged in a conflict, how much of the ownership were to
be placed on their emotions. Lastly, I wanted to encourage students to be more specific when
describing their feelings. This provides support for times when students are engaged in conflict.
Both positive and negative feelings have to be communicated with skill in a conflict (Johnson, D.
W., & Johnson, R. T., 1995, 6:1).
To conduct this activity I asked them to fill a series of fourteen questions. (Appendix B).
Some included:
1. When Im angry at my friends I
2. I feel angry when my friends
3. When my friends express anger towards me, I feel
4. After expressing my anger, I feel

After the students filled out the sheet, they discussed their answers with a partner, and then
rotated to three other partners. At the end of the activity, we shared our thoughts as a class. There
were many students found similarities in their answers. Two of the most similar answers were their
responses on when they feel angry. Many of their responses were feelings of exclusion. What was
more surprising was students documented feelings of exclusion significantly higher than students
feeling bullied or teased. See chart below.



This activity additionally
helped in students access the different
times when they were upset. Seventh
graders have a bevy of emotions and it
was paramount that they shared
feelings more descriptively. Often
times students lump anger with other
emotions. These include feelings of
frustration, when they are hurt, or lose
trust from a peer/ adult. In creating a classroom culture focused around open communication and
conflict resolution practices, it is vital for teachers and students, to discriminate between specific
emotions in order to move forward with coming up with a solution to a problem. These are known
as feeling descriptors. Expressing anger constructively can be one of the most difficult aspects of
resolving conflicts(Johnson and Johnson 1995, 6:8). The students cannot only specify how they
are feeling. Feeling descriptors helped share how others are reacting when they are angry.



Another group of student
responses that is worth
mentioning was when I asked
them how they felt after
expressing their anger. It was
almost evenly divided between
all the students. This showed
me that the students struggled
with identifying their feelings.


This activity and
discussion also created a forum
for the students to realize that it is acceptable to be angry. I reinforced that anger and aggression
are two different feelings. Anger is acceptable; acting upon those feelings is unacceptable.
(Johnson and Johnson , 1995, 6:9). Once students and I had a accurate discussion about the
difference, It led me to create of the mini project, Im feeling Conflicted videos.


Activity 3: Im Feeling Conflicted Video Project
The third activity I led was a project video in which students made reenactments of
conflicts gone wrong in a project-based setting. (See appendix C) This came about out of growing
frustration with the students inability to find ways to problem solve and identify their feelings.
Part of my frustration stemmed from my inability to describe animal identifiers accurately in the
beginning of the year. By this time, the students were legitimately confused. I was overwhelming
them with a lot of information. It felt like at times, I was forcing them to reflect on every aspect in
the classroom.
My research was stalling and I felt it was everything I did not want it to be, forced. I was
abandoning my teaching pedagogies for the sake of data collection. I was frustrated and the
students were feeling the sting. I heard the constant groan of students when I said Its time for an
exit card! But the thought really came to me when I was reading through their Literature Circle
reflection journal.
For five weeks in a row, the students responses shifted from thoughtful to one-word
answers. When I had asked the students to reflect in their journals on the question, how did the
discussion go? On September 21
st
, Ryan wrote: The discussion was helpful in helping me to
understand what was happening in The Giver. That same student a month later responded to the
same question: Good. I was under the assumption that students were overwhelmed with the
reflection process
My original goal had taken a turn; based on Teaching Students To be Peacemakers,
(Johnson & Johnson, 1995) I had planned on selecting students who had identified themselves as
problem-solving owls to train to be peacemakers. They were to meet with me once a week after
school or during lunch to train in peer mediation techniques. In some cruel twist of fate, I
misplaced my Teaching Students to be Peacemakers.
At this point, my thinking shifted. I realized that creating and doing projects was more
natural to my teaching practice. I specialize in creating and scaffolding engaging projects. It is
something that Im truly passionate about.

I was relying too much on it to plan my curriculum. (I found the book months later
disguised in my classroom library) While it presented great activities, the book was designed for a
more traditional classroom setting. The activities didnt align with my teaching practices. It was
not project-based inspired. Before it went missing, I had copied the following peer mediating in
steps. These steps were important to me at this point in the research, because I felt it was stalling
and I wanted to get back to the basics of ensuring communication skills.
Additionally, this protocol was not only great in identifying how to solve conflicts, but it
also reinforced solid communication skills of paraphrasing, behavior description, feeling
descriptions, impression checking, and feedback (Schmuck, 1978, 199). Through the role of the
harmonizer, it indicated to be precise in classifying the two disputants points in a more specific
manner. Furthermore, the harmonizer emphasizes strong communication practices through the use
of the protocol. My over arching goal was to ensure that each of the groups will now know this
language of what their roles of the harmonizer is. Through out the rest of the projects/group
assignments, I planned to assign a group harmonizer. After watching the videos as a class, we
would come up with a description that fit our needs in our classroom. Harmonizer with the group
is a role that Elizabeth Cohen states in Designing Groupwork, A group harmonizer can ease
interpersonal conflicts that arise, can be attentive to the feelings of others...they make sure that
communication lines are open do not allow put downs; encourage positive responses. Through
the videos, my plan was to train all of the students to become a group harmonizer.
I introduced the mini-project and the students were very excited to get behind as well as in
front of the camera. But because Ive done many video projects before, I knew well enough that
there needed to be a storyboard and a script. It was the best decision I made. I set up the script in
three scenes. (Appendix D) The first scene would set the sage for the conflict. The second scene
would depict what not to do in a conflict. And the third scene would show what to do in a conflict.
This would follow the peer mediation guide. Each group of three were assigned one of the
following fake scenarios:

The first two scenes the
students wrote with ease. Most
middle school students know
how not to handle conflicts. That
was the fun part for them. There
was a lot of simulated fist
fighting and phony name-calling.
They understood that very well. When watching the students attempted to write out the third, and
Your best friend borrowed money from you and hasnt paid you back.
You are trying to get your classwork work done, and your neighbor
keeps talking to you
Everyone in your group is goofing off, and you want to get your work
done.
You and a group member disagree on what to make for your finished
product.
You are doing all of the work in a group and everyone else is not.
most vital, scene, it became evident to me that the students were not as versed in the third scene in
which they needed to use the protocol. As an example, in one specific groups scenario was when
two students couldnt decide what product to make. When I watched the students rehearse the third
scene, I realized they didnt completely understand the purpose of the assignment.
Bobby: I want to make a pencil!
Sarah: I want to make a square
Harmonizer: You should combine the two-- Make a squencil!
Overhearing this conversation, it was recognizable to me me the students clearly did not
follow the protocol, thus did not understand the assignment. This was something that I
immediately corrected and went over in more detail with each of the groups. I realized that I
needed to show the importance of each of the steps within protocol.
I revised the script sheets to incorporate the lines for each of the scenes. (Appendix E) The
students broke down each of the steps and created more authentic scenes that followed the
guidelines more closely. Likewise, I required the students to integrate these steps as a title or
subtitle in the final products of their videos. These changes I made during the project led to higher
quality video and a stronger understanding on to implement the protocol.















Step 1:
Sharing
Perspectives

Each disputant tells his/her story of what happened
Disputants share their interpretation of what happened and how the conflicts made
them feel.
Step 2:
Getting More
Information
Harmonizer asks open-ended questions to clarify the situation.
Harmonizer asks, Is there anything else that we need to know?
Step 3:
Defining the
Problem
Harmonizers restate each disputant account.
Harmonizers guide disputants to come to an agreement about what the problem
really is.
Step 4:
Brainstorming
Solutions
Disputants brainstorm possible solutions.
Harmonizers ask disputants to talk about which solutions the disputants are willing
to agree on and which ones are not agreeable.
Harmonizers ask disputants to talk about how each possible solution will affect the
disputants relationship with each other.
Step 6:
Following up
* Disputants and harmonizer check in with in 1-2 days to see how if the solution is
working



When all of the videos were completed, we viewed them as a class. They were campy (one
even included a Dr. Phil impersonator), but they were fantastic. Because the what not to do scenes
were over the top, it made for obvious reactions when the students reflected on the process. When
the students filled out a reflection sheet, their answers returned to it. They were precise about the
process.


It was significant for the
students to experience the
complexities of how and when
conflicts occur in the classroom
setting. While I do not think this
necessarily led to students utilizing
the Harmonizing in Groups
protocol, I believe that this gave
them some foundational practices
for when real conflicts emerge.
What I witnessed since the
students completed the videos was
that they were at least more aware
of other students perspectives.






What I would do differently
The students were able to grasp the superficial information on conflict resolution, but I just
stopped there. We never revisited the Harmonizing in Groups protocol. While Id like to believe it
was somewhere in the back of their minds, many students thought this was a fun activity. Looking
back, I wish I had done a follow up activity where the students incorporated the animal identifiers
and created scenarios themselves. I believe that would have reinforced the material and would
further create a common language. This is important in creating a classroom culture around
conflict resolution practices. Another element I wanted was to select a group of students and train
them through our school elective program. Unfortunately, time, among other circumstances
prevented this from transpiring.

Final results of all the activities conducted
At two distinctive points in the year, I asked the class the same question. Once in the first
week of school and another time in December. The students were asked to explain a time when
they tried to get group members to get along. In August, before the video project was created, the
word compromise appeared four times. When asked the same questions four months later, the
QUESTIONS STUDENT RESPONSES
1. What are some themes
that happened with the
not to do scenarios?
Physical/Violence
Fighting
Punching
Slapping, falling, screaming
What were the outcomes
of the what not to do
scenarios?
Someone gets hurt- Dawson
One group had someone smash a laptop-
Brad
What were the most
realistic outcomes?
When the conversations changed- Cathy
When people were conflicted and they
really didnt know what to do- Shana
When would we use this
protocol in class?
When there is a conflict in class- Karen
How do you feel this could
best be put into practice?
What is the best use of this
protocol?
When you are stuck in the middle of an
argument and you dont know what to do
-Karl
When Im doing a project with someone-
Heather
When we are in a project-Andrew B.
When people are stuck in a bet -Audrey
It could be best used in a skit like it just
was- Brian.
Projects on a lower schedule- Timothy
It can be used when people are arguing or
fighting- Gretchen
word appeared seven times. While this is not a striking change, it is progress for a handful of
students. My main objective for them was to gain knowledge on some of the tools they need in
order to foster the open communication. In terms creating open dialogue in my classroom, the
students were able to identify more accurately their feelings on how they handle conflicts. In the
two charts below, one striking difference between the August data and the December data is the
percentage of students who felt as though they did not handle conflict well.
In August, it was only 1% that felt they handled conflicts poorly, where as that number
spiked to 14% in December. At first, I was disappointed by the data because I was attempting to
teach them to be able to solve their conflicts. However, I realized that while the students may not
have been able to appropriately solve conflicts, they were pinpointing that they need some support
in handling conflicts. This was important because it shows that the students are realizing that they
did not handle conflicts well before participating in the research. Lastly, because students were
consistently reflecting on their behavior, it and we created and reinforced a common language
surrounding conflicts in the classroom.












Larger implications

Each of these actions I took served different values for students. The breaking balloons
activity created a culture early on in the school year in my class that permits conflict. In creating a
conflict-positive environment, conflicts should be encouraged and frequently managed. (Johnson
and Johnson, 1995, 1:1).
Through the reflection activity, identifying my anger, students were able to differentiate
their feelings of frustration, hurt or fear more how they felt when they are engaged in a conflict.
Not expressing anger can lead to displacing your anger. (Johnson and Johnson 1995, 6:8). If
students are able to articulate feelings of frustration in specific way, it will foster a more
communicative environment.
The video activity reinforced students knowledge on how not to handle conflicts and
began the building block to teach students to be peacemakers.
In establishing a culture, it is imperative element in the first few weeks of school is
securing a common language, ensuring students understand their conflict animal identifier, and
reinforcing a conflict-positive classroom. These activities lead my students to a better
understanding of their feelings and how those relate to when they are engaged in a disagreement.
These three actions I conducted at the beginning of the year laid the foundation to ensure a more
open communication culture as the year progressed.