Goals:
· To examine the different stages of conflict escalation
· To allow students to explore and role play methods to inflame a potentially conflictive situation.
· To determine ways in which one can resolve a conflict.
No Extra Materials Needed
Methods
I. Introduction: Review of Last Week
II. Conflict as a case study
III. The Conflict Staircase
IV. Brainstorming Escalators and De-Escalators
V. Escalation role play
VI. Hot and Cold
PEACE PHRASE #3: List the shared concerns and needs against the one separation.
The chances for resolving a conflict increase if the strengths of the relationship – the shared concerns and needs – are given more attention than the single point of separation.
Review the basic concepts introduced last week.
Two teachers act out an argument. For example, we like to use an argument concerning which teacher is supposed to teach the next part of the lesson: accusations fly and an argument ensues. This conflict should escalate into insults and eventually into a fight (or with one teacher storming out of the room.) You can incorporate interrupting, name calling, lying, talking at the same time, disrespect, yelling, and violating confidentiality (spilling secrets). Try to end the fight with a physical threat, after which you pause, break character and discuss what just happened. Make sure to define the action as a conflict.
1. Introduce the idea of the progression of a conflict: Teachers should show the students that conflicts have different stages.
1.1.The Cause -- an obviously minor problem
1.2.Accusation
1.3.Defense -- counter-accusation
1.4.Verbal arguments which escalate into physical confrontation
2. The Conflict Staircase: The conflict staircase is a graphical representation of the path that conflict takes from fairly benign beginnings to a more intense confrontation or fight. Draw a staircase on the board and ask students to label the stairs according to the stages of the conflict.
Figure: Sample Conflict Staircase
A.
Attempt to create a definition for escalation. A conflict
escalator is something which causes a conflict to get more intense, more
quickly. In other words (that the
students will remember), an escalator makes the problem worse. Examine what are some actions or conditions
which cause conflicts to escalate. (These are the arrows on the staircase. An escalator makes the situation rise on the
conflict staircase.) You may want to start the brainstorming session by asking
the following questions: What caused the
conflict (the one we did earlier) to get worse?
B.
Ask the students what
did each person do to cause the conflict to escalate (i.e., not listening,
insults, “getting into each other’s faces ...”)? Write these on the board.
C. What are some other “escalators” that make conflicts intensify?
Write a list of these escalators on the board. Some examples are provided below.
Fear Drugs
Peer Pressure Alcohol
Weapons Self-esteem
Pride Bad Communication
Tone of voice Body language
Facial Expressions Proximity to the other actor
A. Students will examine what are some actions or conditions which cause conflicts to de-escalate. Ask the students what are some different courses that could have been taken so that the fight between the two teachers could have been avoided. Go through the “steps” of the staircase, asking students at each step what could have been done to resolve the conflict at that point. Emphasize that you have the choice to resolve conflicts at any point in the argument. Ask the students to suggest ways in which conflicts can be resolved. We will call these things de-escalators. Conflict de-escalators help to keep the conflict from getting worse and sometimes even resolve conflicts.
B. Ask the students what could each person do in order to resolve the conflict (i.e., listening, compromising, thinking from the other person’s point of view...”)? Write these on the board.
C. Write a list of these de-escalators on the board. Some examples are provided below.
-Listening -Relaxing
-Tone of Voice -Thinking from the other person’s POV
-Compromise -Respect
-Letting the other -Not telling the other person that
person
speak they are
‘wrong’
The goal of this activity is to examine how different escalators & de-escalators affect a conflict.
A. Short Role Play: This role play takes place in the cafeteria. Student A always sits in a particular seat, but one day s/he arrives to find that Student B has taken his seat.
B.
In the first scene, there is no escalation. The conflict begins with student A saying to
student B “you took my seat”, but does not escalate. One of the teachers stops the scene and says that it needs
something else.
C. S/he decides to throw in an escalator and asks the class for a suggestion from the list the board. The teachers role play the same scenario, using the escalators. The students should observe how this escalator changes the dynamics of the situation. Stop role-playing when the conflict has escalated to a sufficient point and discuss with the class how the escalator affected the conflict. Were the initial escalators the only ones used? Did the initial escalators lead to new escalators? How? How did the actors react to the escalators? An example of a scenario is below:
Student 1: You’re sitting in my seat. I sit there every day, so move your butt.
Student 2: So what? This seat is mine today. I don’t care how you feel. You wimp. Just because you’re scared to sit in a different seat, doesn’t mean I should have to move.
1: If you don’t move, I’ll move you myself. Your mama’s so big she needs her own zip code, but you’re not big enough to sit in my seat.
2: You what to bust my butt, I’ll show you who’s going to be wearing a mark around his eye for the next week.
1: That’s it dummy. I’m gonna give it to you.
D. Ask the students how they can de-escalate the conflict. Pick two new volunteers to role play. These two volunteers should use the de-escalators to resolve the conflict. You can assign de-escalators or have the students choose their own.
E. Repeat C & D. Please do not have students role-play the escalators.
Have students either break up into groups with one teacher in each group or stay together, depending on class size (if you have a large class, you might want to keep the kids in one group). Ask the students some questions:
1. How do specific escalators make a situation worse?
2. Are some escalators worse than others?
3. How do they make it harder to resolve the conflict later?
4. Are some de-escalators more effective than others?
5. Do some make a resolution more lasting than others?
6. Is there a losing side in conflict resolution?
This game is similar to the traditional situation where one person looks for something and everyone else tells them if they are getting closer. In this game, though, when the looker gets closer, the class has to say a de-escalator and if the looker is far off, the class has to say an escalator. Hide some small object, like a penny or a pencil and pick someone as a volunteer to step out of the room or close her/his eyes while you hide it. Make sure the class participates. You may want to set out the rule that only one person can speak at a time.
Extra Games: Peace Picture, Secretary Role Play (found in appendix).
BEFORE YOU GO:
Þ Tell the class when you will be visiting next. Ask your teacher for feedback.