The HFS Middle School Conflict Resolution program uses the Workable Peace (www.WorkablePeace.org) framework to analyze the sources of conflict and develop conflict management strategies. Through it students learn the skills to negotiate everyday conflicts independently and effectively. Specific negotiation skills such as understanding perceptions, listening, brainstorming, and dealing with emotionally charged situations are taught through the advisory program which utilizes the internationally acclaimed Program for Young Negotiators’ curriculum.  Middle school faculty members ably utilize the standards for conflict resolution based on the Friends School of Minnesota’s conflict resolution protocols by mediating conflicts when student-to-student negotiations are exhausted.

Applying the Workable Peace Framework to the Study and Management of Conflict at HFS

Students learn how to use the framework through role play. In each year’s social studies course, students assume roles within some historical conflict (6^th/Ancient Greece, 7^th/Rwanda 1996, 8^th/American West 1888). Each role has its confidential instructions through which each student advances his or her character’s interests while working to resolve conflict in a collaborative effort. The experience in these role plays enables students and faculty to extrapolate their understanding of conflict and its management strategies to studies in other subjects, in group work, in literature, in contemporary world issues, and more. The Framework also provides a shared vocabulary that students, teachers, and parents can use to discuss conflict and brainstorm solutions.

Program Rationale

Middle school students, familiar with the purpose and protocol of mediation, take a developmentally appropriate step in their conflict resolution experience – negotiation.  Negotiation occurs at a primary level of interaction.  Students “negotiate” their way among peers and conflicts everyday.  Rarely do children find the opportunity to have a conflict “mediated” for them by an impartial outsider.  Teaching the skills of negotiation through the Program for Young Negotiators, and exploring the sources of conflict with a focus on building a “workable peace” we provide students with a standardized method of addressing and negotiating interpersonal and inter-group conflict.