feature stories
Learning to break the conflict cycle
Mar 27, 2008 3:31 PM
News reports of a 5-year-old Queens boy who in January was handcuffed by a school safety agent at PS 81 and then hauled off to a hospital psych ward have prompted new and probing questions about handling disruptive students.
One of the workshops at this year’s Parafest focused on conflict resolution techniques, which place responsibility squarely on the adult in such a conflict.
Workshop presenters, from the UFT Teacher Center, noted that when a student initiates aggression toward an adult, often the adult will escalate the situation by merely mirroring the student’s behavior. The adult’s “counter-aggression,” they said, reinforces the student’s negative thoughts and feelings, which then perpetuates a cycle of conflict.
The workshop presenters played a clip from the 1985 movie, “The Breakfast Club,” during which the aggravated principal reacts to smart-mouthed insults hurled at him by a student locked in detention in a library. The principal shoots back a threat for each insult. Adult and student engage in a heated back-and-forth, one-upping each other and getting louder with each escalation.
What were the consequences of the principal’s impulses?
“He was getting nowhere,” observed Joanne Laczynski, a para from MS 50 in Brooklyn. Cookie Nordt, from the same school, added, “He’s just making the kid angrier and further igniting the whole situation.”
The student character in the film had been the victim of child abuse at home, explained Sandra Lenon, one of the presenters. When a child acts out for attention, it can be a sign of a problem at home, the presenter said.
The tone of voice you use with these kids has an effect on them, noted a member of the audience.
Paras often have great rapport with students, Lenon said. “Maybe because of the very nature of their job, they tend to know the students’ habits and values.”
Laczynski added, “You can’t be on their level, but you can’t be too far away from them either.”
The presenters listed the steps to break the conflict cycle:
- Avoid a power struggle.
- Eliminate “You” messages.
- Use “I” messages to calm down.
- Be rational, not reactionary, and focus on the student’s needs, not on your own feelings.
— Natalie Bell
