On the Edutopia website, I found a video entitled "Justice Committee: Using Restorative Practices to Resolve Conflicts." I really appreciate how students are learning how to mediate conflicts on their own. I think a lot of the time, students might assume that they will be in trouble when teachers are involved. However, at this school, students and teachers work collaboratively to help the affected party get what they need out of the process. Rather than focusing on who is right and who is wrong, which is not the intention of the committee, students and teachers work together to hear both sides of the story so that each party has the opportunity to voice what happened.
When students learn that conflict can be resolved peacefully, it removes some of the anger from the equation. This setting also encourages students to express what they were feeling and the purpose of their actions. When students can do this in a calm and safe environment, they may be more open to hearing the other party's side, instead of building up their anger and frustration for each other. From my experiences in schools, children are easily frustrated and can sometimes hold grudges for long periods of time. Some children tend to bottle their emotions up until it is too much for them to handle, and then they explode! I can see how forming a justice committee might help these types of students because their perspectives will be heard. I truly think that students simply want to be heard without being interrupted or being told they are wrong. I think we need to alter the perspective that If I do something wrong, I'll get punished. Instilling fear into children is not the way to resolve conflict, and I think this is why children are so quick to blame others when something bad happens. Creating classroom rules from the beginning of the year and talking about how to resolve conflict are some ways to help create a safe environment for children to tell their sides of the story.
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