When you hear the words bullying or cyber bullying, certain negative thoughts come to mind. There is the immediate desire to roll your eyes, or tune out. When you hear that there is going to be an hour-long discussion on the dangers of bullying in class, you prepare yourself for an hour-long nap. This predilection to ignoring talks on bullying is completely understandable, because in the end we have been receiving the same message for years. Yes, we get it; bullying is a problem. No one is arguing against that fact, we just don?t want to hear another lecture on it.
But there is another side of bullying that we, as students, have completely ignored. The side of dealing with, processing and labeling bullying, rather than the act of identifying it and reporting it. We all know that when we see someone being shoved into a locker that it?s not right. Still, most students don?t feel invested in the process of dealing with conflict in our schools, yet it also doesn?t feel quite right to pawn off the problem to somebody else. For this, I suggest not a new method, but a very old one: Peer mediation and Restorative Practices.
Now, I know that peer mediation, much like bullying, evokes the strong desire to put your head down on the table and nap, but peer mediation is incredibly successful in dealing with all sorts of disciplinary problems. Not only does it work, but also it puts the power in the hands of the students where it belongs.
The exact wording of the Fairfax County Public School Board?s goal regarding student confidence and leadership ability reads ?students will possess the skills to manage and resolve conflict..? However, looking around, you see that there are currently two options: ignore whatever conflict has arisen, or (if the conflict is big enough) report it to the school and await disciplinary action, a choice that more times than not a drastic step.
There are a whole slew of intermediary actions that are too big to be ignored yet too small to result in strong disciplinary force from the schools. There is no middle ground, and there is also no way for someone faced with conflict to deal with the conflict on his or her own. That goal, which the School Board believes is so important, is not adequately addressed in our school.
This is why peer mediation would be so benefit the students. Not only does it comply with the School Board?s goals on conflict resolution, but also it allows for a middle ground that empowers students to solve conflict on their own and learn necessary skills in understanding each other.
Despite all these benefits, and all of the other strengths that peer mediation offers, the sad truth is that peer mediation is dwindling out. Schools with strong programs are losing funds, schools with new programs are stonewalled because of budget cuts or lack of training and perhaps worst of all, peer mediation programs are being merged with peer helping programs and marginalized. They are left to rot in the dust, an unused and untapped source of boundless potential. The idea of peer mediators is not to have students stand idly by and watch the adults deal with it, it?s for students to learn how to deal with it on their own and create lasting and powerful solutions.
Conflict resolution only works if it?s given a try, but more and more schools are unwilling or unable to consider even giving peer mediation that opportunity to surprise them.
This is understandable, I suppose, because even though you?ve all heard about peer mediation before, you don?t really know what it is. You remember it as a club that some dorks went to or that elective they gave you in middle school if your schedule wasn?t full. Some of you might even recognize it as conflict resolution, but then file it away as some more of that touchy-feely silliness that you think of when people say group therapy or ?how does that make you feel.?
But that?s not what peer mediation is. Peer mediation is a tried and true method of conflict resolution. There are exact steps and skills that a person has to understand and use before being able to effectively mediate. There are trainings and methods and countless hours devoted to finding working solutions. It does deal with the issues and needs of a conflict, but it?s not counseling of therapy. It?s conflict resolution. When given the proper training, mediation works and with mediation you rarely see repeat offenders. This is because mediation deals with the issues and needs of a student (or even a large group of students) not just the actions they choose to manifest them as. Plus, as the title suggest, it?s a process delegated by your peers, who inevitably have something in common with you.
If you are tired of the way that discipline seems to ignore all the underlying issues, react too harshly and then not even work, then I implore you to look into the prospects of peer mediation.
If it makes sense to you to kick a student out of school for not coming to school, then by all means do, but if it doesn?t (which, honestly, it shouldn?t) it?s time for a new era of discipline. It?s time for students to take ownership of their own lives, and begin to understand the skills to manage and resolve conflict.
It?s time for us to seriously consider the prospects of peer mediation as a powerful weapon in combating the pain, suffering and conflict that we all deal with everyday.
The difficulty in running peer mediation for students is that there are no sponsors with a conflict resolution background and no time for any teachers to attend a two hour training session to learn the skill so desperately needed in all high schools. The solution? At the very least consider allowing a few short lessons on it during the school year, perhaps in the awkward lull between finals and the end of the year.
If that?s impossible, improbable or you just don?t want to, then there is still another option. The peer mediation Steering Committee has been devising 10 simple lesson plans on peer mediation; consider keeping them as emergency lesson plans for those days when everything goes a little crazy and people don?t know what to do.
In the end, I am only asking for one thing. Do not ignore and marginalize the power of student lead conflict resolution. Do not simply push it aside. First, try to understand what it actually is, and what it actually does, and then, if you can honestly say that you see no value in peer mediation, you can tuck it away, and never think of it again.
But if you research, you will see that peer mediation is easily one of the most useful skills that any student (or even faculty member) will ever learn.