Teaching Conflict Resolutions Through Pretzel

Put yourself back in elementary school and imagine your reaction to a classmate calling you a name or hurting your feelings through action or word. Would you speak up or would you allow that hurt to fester and grow into something more significant? Would you feel listened to? And if you caused the hurt would you recognize it as such?In our adult conversation, do we listen - really listen - to each other even when the conversation is difficult? I am not so sure any more. Maybe what we adults could use is a refresher course in conflict resolution.Ruth Sidney Charmey, author of Teaching Children to Care and a co-founder of the Northeast Foundation for Children invented a powerful activity for children named "Pretzel" (click on the link to find out how the activity was implemented) as a way to teach children conflict resolution and empathy.My good friend and colleague, Paula Gendron, introduced me to Pretzel as a means to teach children awareness of others. Although from year to year it morphed into other small treats (Skittle, Sticker) according to the allergy concerns in the classroom, the premise always remained the same: we all need to feel safe in our classroom community in order to do our best work. In my classrooms, we used this activity almost weekly to heighten awareness and sensitivity  in the classroom community.Two of the rules or norms for Pretzel would be applicable to all of us.  The first one would seem fairly easy: find something positive to say and compliment someone.  It's easy to see negativity, and that can wear anyone down.  I believe that when I look for something positive to say, no matter how seemingly insignificant, it can change not only my mindset, but another's as well. For my former students, it was a requirement that there be something positive noticed and complimented whenever we participated in Pretzel.The second norm is a bit harder to do whether you are a child or an adult. When someone offers a criticism, the listener needs to really listen without interjecting commentary or excuses. It is important for the listener to remember that the words are expressing how someone perceives a situation.Listening without becoming defensive or commenting defensively is very hard whether or not you are 8 or 18 or 48 or 108. However, listening to another viewpoint or version of events along with an awareness and acceptance of how someone feels is an essential component to developing empathy. When an 8-year-old hears a classmate say that walking away from one friend to play with another caused hurt feelings, the first reaction is denial. We need to notice more when words and actions might cause another person hurt. We need to be more empathetic.Grownups need to practice conflict resolution now more than ever. We are bombarded daily with bully talk and hate speech that inflames and does not resolve anything. We need to accept that there may be more than one way to perceive a situation, listen no matter how difficult to hear, and develop our adult empathy. And maybe once we adults practice the skills of conflict resolution, we'll have less conflict to resolve. 

We Need To Make Time for This!

I've been privileged to teach in a school that embraced the tenets of Responsive Classroom. If you've never been exposed to this program, explore this link. There is a calm sense of purposefulness in Responsive Classroom schools; it begins right from the first days of school when students are explicitly taught expectations for their own behaviors and treatment of other members of the community of learners, but also for the materials and equipment that we use in our classroom. Kids learn to manage conflicts and to care about each other.Unfortunately, much of what we used to do had to be let go. As it stands, the time demands in classrooms exceed the number of minutes in a school day. Something is always slipping out of reach. Unfortunately over the last few years, working through Responsive Classroom has nearly disappeared.The end of a school year is a time when many children feel stressed and worried. They are concerned, naturally, about leaving the comfort of their familiar classroom and teacher and sometimes their school. This is especially true for children of poverty or trauma. Any teacher who has experienced the end of the year with students with socio-economic challenges has seen the Two-Weeks-To-Go meltdowns. It is the overwhelming unknowns that create behavior challenges just when we'd all like to sit back and glide toward a finish line.I have had a challenging group of mainly girls this year. This last week they seem to be unable to stop themselves from being in each other's business. The final tip-off that things were about to blow came this afternoon when one of my students voiced that she didn't think anyone was her friend anymore and a nearby eavesdropper commented, "Well, I don't like you!". Wow! Even I was taken aback by this lack of a filter!So, we stopped what we were working on (Literary Essays), as Writing Workshop was no longer the most important thing to be accomplished. We had to fix our community so that everyone felt they were being treated civilly. We had to resolve those conflicts.Back when we "had the time" for Morning Meetings and community building, our days seemed to go better. Oh there were times when we needed to talk it out - my favorite conflict resolution activity has always been Ruth Sidney Charney's Pretzel activity - but mainly our days started and ended with warmth, calm, and a feeling that together we could accomplish most anything. What has been lost in our high-pressure, inanely over-scheduled days where we hit the ground running and don't stop until dismissal is the chance to work on interpersonal skills.Today was simply the point when students, already feeling a bit overwhelmed and unsure, let me know in no uncertain terms that they need something else. We used some of those principles that Ruth Sidney Charney advocates and cleared the air. My favorite part of today was at the end when one student asked if we could all try to "say something nice" about each other. I knew we were on our way to healing!Even if there are only two weeks left in our school year, we are going to pass on those mandated must-dos and find a way to become a community again. Every child in that class deserves to feel safe and welcomed.

Teaching Children to Care

More and more I find myself talking to students about what is and is not socially acceptable. Oh I know that since the Stone Age kids have been playing cootie games. The level of nastiness, though, has been taken up quite a few notches; words and actions, put-down, all are becoming so hurtful that the behaviors need correction before any academics kick in.Yesterday after my students returned from recess, it was clear something had boiled up to the top. So we sat on the rug to have a class meeting. The kids could hardly contain themselves given an opportunity to air their grievances. Interesting, too, was the solution to the problems -- "tell the teacher".  Kids clearly don't know how to advocate or stand up for themselves first!Today we will begin using Conflict Resolution, some teachers know this activity as "pretzel" or "M&M", but with the food allergies I have always had in my classroom, we call it "Skittle".  Here's how it works - and I freely admit to co-opting this from other sources, particularly my good friend and former teaching colleague Paula Gendron:Students gather in a circle and are given a stick of 10 snap cubes. We introduce the first part of Skittle by talking briefly about how we all enjoy having a kindness shown to us and then one after the other, each student takes a turn "recognizing" a classmate for something kind that happened. For me, I need the emphasis to turn to giving positive attention to polite and caring behaviors, so I do not allow students to have a "pass" - everyone needs to notice a kindness.  After talking about the positive, the "recognizer" gives the "recognized" one snap cube.The next part of Conflict Resolution is to give students who are bothered by someone's behavior - words or actions - to "mention" it. Students are told they need to listen without comment or argument because the "mentioner" feels what he/she feels. After listening, the person who was mentioned gives a snap cube to the mentioner as an apology of action.At the end of the Conflict Resolution meeting, each student gets the same number of Skittles as he/she has cubes.Does this help? In the past it sure does. I've seen students with 4 or 5 cubes at the end, recognize that their behavior is bothersome and increase their cube take to 8 or 9 in a couple of weeks. And, students quickly learn that an option for taking care of minor infractions is to "save it for Conflict Resolution".This is just the beginning of our work toward a more peaceful classroom. Because, without peace, my students really will not be ready to learn the academics.