Reducing violence in U.S. schools

We don't take sides.

We don't make decisions for you.

We don't decide who's right or wrong.

We are here to help you negotiate.

The ground rules include "no physical fighting or threats." The trainees learn to distinguish between that which must be reported to authorities and that which is confidential.

Teen mediators also participate with adults in sessions designed to help students whose barely contained aggressiveness is linked to dysfunctional family life. In one case, seven middle school boys were brought together around a table in a counselor's office with two teen mediators and a member of staff. "The scars displayed on their faces and arms gave an immediate indication that these youths are not strangers to violence," recalls Amy Swift, the social worker who manages the school's program. The mediators probed for the reasons why the boys battled with each other. Eventually, out came stories about the boys' neighborhood, which they called "Felony Flats." It was a story, according to Swift, about "gangs to protect themselves, the neighbors selling drugs, the parents at the bars." Such sessions, Swift believes, are more effective than having adults try to browbeat students.

The teen mediator program is an example of the "cadre approach," which focuses on a small number of relatively well-trained students. An alternative is the "total student body approach," in which conflict resolution is viewed as a life skill to be diffused throughout the school population. In the latter approach, students take turns serving as mediator in order to internalize what educators David W. and Roger T. Johnson call the "credo of non-violence." The Johnsons tested that theory in a variety of schools, concluding that "it is the actual experience of being a mediator that best teaches students" how to settle their own disputes:

We found that before training, most students had daily conflicts, used destructive strategies that tended to escalate the conflict... and did not know how to negotiate. After training, students could apply the negotiation and mediation process to actual conflict situations, as well as transfer them to nonclassroom and nonschool settings, such as the playground, the lunchroom, and at home. Further, they maintained their knowledge and skills throughout the school year.l6

At the publicly funded Upstate School Safety Center in New Paltz, NY, the presence of conflict resolution skills is considered a "protective" factor, tending to offset such violence-risk factors as the incidence of domestic abuse in students' homes. For the last two years, the center has been encouraging the formation of "school safety teams." The center, which now assists 35 school districts, offers training in the skills necessary to defuse situations that might lead to violence. In many schools, according to Joakim Lartey, a program coordinator at the center, "there is poor communication and the teachers don't know how to de-escalate the kids." His observation is supported by a survey of 348 Oregon schools conducted around the time of the Springfield incident; more than half of the schools agreed with the proposition: "Many teachers do not have appropriate conflict resolution skills." And fully 81% of the schools believed that the statement was true of students as well." If a district is racially and culturally diverse, the lack of communication and conflict skills could help foster ethnically-based gangs.