The Teachers Role Regarding Adolescent Conflict Zach Peters

In my last paper Fred Kim, Victor Haas, and I explored the possible reasons why conflicts occur among adolescents, specifically examining the factors that cause initially trivial misunderstandings to escalate into significant issues like violence, ostracism, and bullying. The biggest influencing factors we found were lack of social skills and lack of social support, often true for many of the involved parties, especially those labeled as victims. We used relational identity theory, emotional intelligence theory, and concepts of emotional regulation to analyze three case studies: one involving bullying between three boys, the second a misunderstanding within a small group of girls, and the third the ostracism of one girl by a large group of peers. We next proceeded to critique and suggest some methods for conflict prevention and resolution grounded in theories of positive psychology. Such methods included life coaching, mentoring, and peer mediation. In this paper I will further explore the concept of adolescent conflict and its prevention by focusing in on the teachers role in each and using scholarly articles as well as personal experience to support claims. The ultimate goal of this exploration is to discover and illustrate the complex teacher-student relationship and the teachers need to balance authoritarian discipline, personal compassion, and scholarly competence in order to support healthy student growth. In first examining class room conflict prevention I look to two sources; the first is my own experience working with troubled boys at the Childrens Home of Northern Kentucky,

Final Paper: the Teachers Role Regarding Adolescent Conflict

Z. Peters 2

where conflict prevention was a daily part of my job description. I worked there for a year and half, and my mid-term papers first case story was derived from an experience there. Through that story and countless other experiences I learned that the environment you create for adolescents plays a large role in conflict prevention and escalation. In the Home setting, there were boys all with troubled pasts (and many with poor social skills) all living in very close proximity under strict supervision. Similarly, a class room consists of even more students from varying backgrounds spending large chunks of time together every single day under the supervision of the teacher. Such environments are inevitably stressful the class room because of social and academic expectations and the Home because of the pressures of progressing through a behavior modification program while living in abnormal circumstances. Knowing that this stress exists, a teacher must do everything in his or her power to alleviate or at least manage it by creating a safe, stimulating, and positive environment. At the Home I did this by circulating among the residents, spending time with each, and making a conscious effort to approach and check in with anyone displaying unusual changes in behavior. I participated in activities with the residents rather than simply supervising them from afar. I smiled frequently and learned not to take things personally. I focused whenever possible on things residents were doing well. When pointing out faults, I made efforts to do so in a way that suggested how the resident could improve upon his behaviors rather than simply telling him things like Stop or You have to go to bed early tonight as a punishment. When explaining expectations, I was always as explicit as possible (no matter how many times they complained

Final Paper: the Teachers Role Regarding Adolescent Conflict

Z. Peters 3

that we already know this!) in outlining what appropriate and inappropriate behaviors looked like as well as what the rewards and consequences would be for each. Some of these strategies I learned through trainings while others I picked up through experience. And though I learned them in a Home setting, each of these strategies can effectively be applied by teachers in the classroom. For instance, prior to any group project I address my expectations for what respectful interactions should look like between group members and between rival groups. I do so because on occasions when I have not, problems have arisen. Students get off task, they argue, and they get frustrated; all of these behaviors lead to a chaotic classroom which makes students feel less safe and more stressed. This stress can and does result in student-student conflict as well as teacher-student conflict. So instead, I consciously state clear expectations in advance. The second major source I look to when it comes to classroom conflict prevention is the theory of Positive Youth Development (PYD), the most essential aspect of which is the notion that the best way to help adolescents grow is to place value and emphasis on the building up of strengths (Lerner, Almerigi, Theokas, & Lerner, 2005). I mentioned a similar emphasis above describing my preferences for focusing on the positives I see in the youths I work with, but the difference between my existing views and those of PYD theorists concerns the reason for this emphasis. I always emphasized the positive for two reasons; the first is that I dislike conflict and will avoid it except when its absolutely necessary to do otherwise. The second stems from my belief that every single human life has value; as a result of this belief I always seek what others have to offer the world rather than criticizing those things they let get in the way of that potential.

Final Paper: the Teachers Role Regarding Adolescent Conflict

Z. Peters 4

On the other hand, PYDs emphasis on the positive stems from research showing that students who are already good at something will, when given the opportunity, show more growth in that area than in an area of weakness they are forced to try and improve upon (Lerner, Almerigi, Theokas, & Lerner, 2005). It is common sense that people tend to value the things they are good at; PYD theorists suggest that educators take advantage of this value to help students grow. People who are confident in their abilities are more likely and willing to take on significant challenges because they believe they are capable of succeeding. The practice of taking on these challenges builds resilience, which over time, can carry over into other areas of an adolescents life, including school subjects in which they have less skill (Lerner, Almerigi, Theokas, & Lerner, 2005). This newly applied resilience prevents students from becoming as easily frustrated in the classroom, and this lack of frustration should in turn help prevent conflict between said students. What specific actions might a teacher take to promote PYD? He can differentiate activities so that in any given week most, if not all, of his students will have taken part in at least one lesson that catered to their specific skill sets. He can connect students to resources relating to their interest areas: study groups, religious groups, extracurricular activities, books, films, mentors, etc. Even something as simple as genuine praise or well-framed criticism can go a long way not only to help students grow but to also make them want to grow. Now that weve considered PYD theorists strengths-focused approaches, let us acknowledge the fact that all people are flawed and furthermore that these flaws can get in the way of identity development. If, as stated earlier, adolescents place a value on their personal

strengths, it seems logical to suppose that on the other end of the spectrum their personal flaws

Final Paper: the Teachers Role Regarding Adolescent Conflict

Z. Peters 5

also carry a meaningful significance. I know that I personally, and many youths Ive worked with, can become defensive, frustrated, and embarrassed when our flaws are exposed. Because these reactions can result in unwanted conflict, it is perhaps best to avoid addressing adolescent flaws when possible. Wallis and Dell (2004) remind us that the average brain does not reach full maturity until age 25 and that the teenage brain in particular has a lot going on: hormonal changes, neuron pruning, and the absorption of a high school education amongst other things. Because of all this development taking place in a still immature, yet complex organ, adolescent decision-making is fundamentally flawed. If a student makes a mistake, you can tell them to shape up or ship out, but making mistakes is part of how the brain optimally grows (Wallis & Dell, 2004, p. 6). With this in mind, perhaps teachers should avoid heavy-handed interventions in instances of classroom conflict when possible. If mistakes are part of growth, and conflicts result from mistakes, are conflicts a necessary evil? I dont know about necessary, but they are definitely inevitable, and with the above article in mind, it seems prudent for teachers to remember that while adolescents do bad, stupid things, they themselves are not bad or stupid. The teacher cannot hold poor decisions or inter-student conflict personally against the students involved, but neither can the teacher fail to address the conflict. Bowman (2008) describes how the atmosphere of a school plays a role in the prevalence of aggressive behaviors: kids over time will to a large degree resemble what the setting rewards, models, and accepts. When it promotes positive character traits, most of the kids will fall into line with that. But when it tolerates aggression, thats particularly what the high-risk kids will do (pp. 112-113).

Final Paper: the Teachers Role Regarding Adolescent Conflict

Z. Peters 6

So while paying excessive attention to student flaws can be harmful, ignorance of these flaws can be worse. It is the teachers role not only to emphasize the strengths of his students but also to visibly address and resolve the types of harmful behaviors that cannot be tolerated. This serves the purposes of settling the conflict at hand, establishing expectations for the future, and building an environment in which negativity is not acceptable. A fresh example of such conflict resolution occurred today in my own classroom when, during a shared reading of a play, one student read another students part resulting in the latters frustration. This frustrated student cursed at the first student under his breath, and then the first student proceeded to interrupt the class reading with a vulgar verbal tirade. I recognized immediately that this moment could escalate into a larger issue between these students and/or disrupt the learning of the entire class and/or result in conflict between the students and myself depending on how I handled the situation. The manner in which I chose to do so involved interrupting the two, addressing the behavior (not the students) as inappropriate and disrespectful. I asked the girl on the tirade if she needed to leave class to collect herself, to which she responded No, and returned shortly to reading. I left things at that in order to ensure that learning could continue for the other 30 students in the room. Later, I addressed each of the two confrontational students individually after class. I asked for their perspectives on what happened, then provided my own, then explained why the behavior was a problem, then suggested how they might handle something similar in the future. I consider this intervention a success because I was able to initially shut the conflict down rather than escalate it. The whole class saw me shut it down and was able to get back on track.

Final Paper: the Teachers Role Regarding Adolescent Conflict

Z. Peters 7

Then both students were willing to have a respectful conversation about what happened. I made a conscious visible effort to address the problem, but I did so in a positively-framed, personalized manner rather than a publicly accusatory manner. As a result, the conflict was resolved without any real damage done to learning or student well-being. Also, by being able to prevent conflict escalation in the presence of my whole class, I was able to model for my students how to maintain composure in the face of distress as well as how to attack the issue rather than the person. In an interview by D.H. Bowman (2008), James Garbarino emphasizes the importance of such positive role models when it comes to dealing with conflict, particularly male aggression. Male identity, he suggests, is wrapped up in three messages: that its better to be mad than sad, that to be a man is to be powerful and strong, and that aggression is a legitimate way of responding to conflict (Bowman, 2008, p. 111). While this is a simplified argument, I agree that each of these is part of the typical males view of his own masculinity, whether consciously or subconsciously. I further agree that in order to counteract these often harmful and aggression-inducing viewpoints, male teachers need to be models of non-typical, yet still respectable, masculinity. Being a model is not enough, however. A teacher can be the perfect model of authority, discipline, respectability, and knowledge, but there is something else he needs in order to create an optimal and relatively conflict-free classroom. A teacher needs to build relationships with his students and encourage them to build relationships with each other. Gilligan (1996) emphasizes interpersonal relationships as possibly the most important aspect of human development in that much of the learning that takes place in this world is, in one way or another, social learning. In a

Final Paper: the Teachers Role Regarding Adolescent Conflict

Z. Peters 8

classroom, adolescents learn from one another, about one another, with one another, and at the very least next to one another, which means that a large percentage of their academic experiences will be filtered in some way through their relationships with other people. This in turn means that the quality of these relationships is highly important to the success of a classroom. To illustrate this, I think back on the most important learning experiences of my life. There are a few classes and a few books here and there that were influential; however, most of the time when I think in this manner it is the people that come to mindthe people who played a role in the experience, the people from whom I learned. There are teachers, friends, family members, and pastors, but there are also complete strangersI only met them once in my life, but I still remember because of something unusual they taught me. Positive relationship building, with this testament in mind, enhances both academic learning and personal growth. A lack of positive relationships, which my colleagues and I observed in the conflicted students discussed in our previous paper, is a detriment to learning and growth. And as we established earlier, students who are learning and growing are less likely to feel the need to engage in conflicts with one another because they are already engaged in something more important, more valuable. Students not learning and growing in relationships are much more likely to becoming frustrated, confused, aggressive, anxious, or depressive So what does this relationship building look like in the classroom? Between teacher and student it looks like many of the earlier strategies I learned while at the Childrens Home. Between student and student, it might look like an emphasis on student centered learning in the form of group projects, discussion, or respectful debate. The teacher might allow the students to pick their own groups at times and at other times to assign groups in such a way that pushes them

Final Paper: the Teachers Role Regarding Adolescent Conflict

Z. Peters 9

to meet new people. The teacher might encourage humor or playfulness or story-telling or advice-giving. In any case teachers have an array of tools at hand for dealing with classroom conflict. The best methods are those of prevention, specifically creating a positive, safe, and respectful environment in which conflict is not an option. Should conflict arise nonetheless, a teacher should embrace it to the extent that is necessary without dwelling on it to the point of disruption. He should address the student as an individual having a problem rather than an individual who is a problem. There are many specific strategies Ive discussed and many more I have not, but the key with any of them is to ultimately promote the academic and personal growth of the students involved.

Final Paper: the Teachers Role Regarding Adolescent Conflict

Z. Peters 10

References Bowman, D. H. (2008). Male adolescent identity and the roots of aggression: a conversation with James Garbarino. In M. Sadowski (Ed.) Adolescents at school: perspectives on youth, identity, and education (2nd ed., pp. 111-115). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. Gilligan, C. (1996). The centrality of relationship in human development: A puzzle, some evidence, and a theory. In G. Noam, & K. Fischer, K. (Eds.), Development and vulnerability in close relationships. Pages 237-261. Lerner, R. M., Almerigi, J.B., Theokas, C., & Lerner, J.V. (2005). Positive youth development: A view of the issues. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 25(1), 10-16. Wallis, C. & Dell, K. (2004). What makes teens tick. Time Magazine, May 10, 2004.