Use the Conflict in the Educational Environment - Workshop about school mediation in Denmark

Nordic conference about mediation, Helsinki, may 26. – 28. 2006

By Karin M. Villumsen, Danish Centre of Educational Environment

Introduction
School mediation is an important subject and let me start by quoting the website: www.coexistenceofcivilizations.org

This website is a manifestation of an initiative taken by the well-reputed weekly newsletter Monday Morning in continuation of the situation with the Muhammed drawings in Denmark – the Muhammed crisis – as it was called. A series of business people, researchers, artists and other people have joined this initiative which has the purpose to create respect, dialog, and reflection in a democratic and responsible way in a global world. Their letter of intent says among other things:

From the lowest point to a turning point
It must be possible carry out the debate with greater dignity and deeper reflection than has been the case so far. It must be demonstrated that a country with deep roots in public information and democracy can also handle constructive dialog. The need has hardly been greater than right now.

Any crisis creates the opportunity of a turning point, a development and a way out. We will work to ensure that this opportunity grows bigger than the crisis and that we get closer to a turning point.

Crisis can be replaced by conflict.

It is possible to learn the turning point in the school. But it requires attention!

The Danish Centre of Educational Environment is an independent public centre working to ensure that the requirements in “law about pupils’ and students’ educational environment” are fulfilled.

DCUM collects, systematize and provide knowledge about educational environment and gives advice to everyone with questions about the subject. The law was passed in 2001 and applies for all schools and educational institutions in Denmark. This means that all pupils and students have a right to a good educational environment and that it is the duty of the school to evaluate the educational environment at least every third year. Pupils and students have the right to be part of this evaluation and the follow-up.

I primarily work with the psychical area of the educational environment, and for almost three years I have worked on fighting bullying and promote well-being and social learning in the primary school – via a national initiative I have focused on the subject ”Safety for all” by concentrating on the social relations between pupils, communication and strengthening of the pupil-teacher relation. At DCUM, we have recognised that the key to this is constructive conflict resolving and school mediation.

Safety and better educational environment via conflict resolution
The way we have done it is to collect knowledge of the area – hear about the Nordic and especially the Norwegian experiences of school mediation and use the experiences that had already been made in Denmark as basis. Among other things, we wanted to strengthen the competences and opportunities of the school staff and the pupils in the social life at the school. Learning takes place all the time – not only in formalized frames in the specific education but also in the social life, in the relations – as an important part of the educational environment.

We have had projects at two different schools. One school had no knowledge of conflict resolution and mediation. The other school had some knowledge of conflict resolution and mediation as the staff had worked with this them selves for a couple of years. At the school with no knowledge we did a project of educating a small group of employees and coaching them in their implementation in the every day life: primarily to get conflict resolution part of the school timetable.

At the other school, the one with the knowledge about conflict management, we did a project of peer mediation; educate, select and set up a team of peer mediators. We recruited a film crew to follow this and this has resulted in a documentary film: The Peer Mediators.

We also gathered a series of schools from the whole country in a network of schools working with constructive conflict resolution and mediation in different ways. The purpose is exchange of ideas and experiences and continuous development of the area.

The campaign Use the Conflict 
We have gathered the different sub-projects in a campaign – Use the Conflict. The campaign started in March 2006 and is running to the summer holiday. However, the campaign material is continuously accessible for the schools.

We have had 2 conferences with a series of schools from the network as workshop facilitators. In total, 750 people participated in the two conferences – both adults and pupils.
 
Out campaign material also consists of:

• Documentary film about peer mediation – The Peer Mediators. The film has been shown at national television
• Website with inspiration, knowledge and experiences together with educational material to be used by pupils, teachers and management 
• Guidance material with models and inspiration of developing school mediation – targeted at management and staff
• Good examples of schools using conflict resolution
• Evaluation of bullying and conflicts in 9th grade
• Course catalogue offering courses in constructive conflict resolution targeted at management and staff of the school
• Posters

The purpose of the material has been to work out a specific material for guidance and inspiration in order awake the curiosity of the schools and then help them get started on a dialog and effort on their school specifically.

Each school can have one set of the campaign material free of charge.

The campaign is primarily promoted via the Internet: links to www.brugkonflikten.dk  from different central places, e.g. the website of the Danish Ministry of Education, websites of professional magazines and DCUM’s own website www.dcum.dk.

Besides this the campaign is promoted via attention in the professional magazines and to a smaller extent in the daily press. Furthermore, via network and DCUM’s newsletter and telephone survey.

The main purpose of the campaign is to extend the knowledge and use of conflict resolution and mediation in the primary school. The campaign is linked to DCUM’s general effort of improving educational environment with more safety and less bullying, systematizing and qualifying the work with social and personal competences with more ease for learning and involvement of the pupils as competent actors in their own educational environment.

Which conflicts are the pupils experiencing in the school and what are the reasons?

Everybody are handling conflicts as we meet them every where. Most conflicts are easily solved. But all conflicts have the potential of developing in a negative direction.

Based on the evaluation of Bullying and conflicts in 9th grade – carried out by the Children Council and DCUM in 2006 – we know that some of the typical reasons of conflicts are:

• Misunderstandings
• Bad mood
• Gossip/rumours
• Break up of friendships or maybe battles about friendships and position in a group
• Problems around collaboration related to school tasks
• Teacher – pupil disputes
• Different attitudes to society
• The way of talking
• Lack of professional challenges

Furthermore, battles about skipping rope, about being part of a game, about who decides, and conflicts related to SMS and Internet chatting can be added to the list.

The Pupils’ opinion of the teachers’ resolution of and time for conflicts

From the evaluation from 9th grade it also appears that many pupils experience that it is coincidental how the teachers/adults at the school solve the conflicts. Even that the conflicts sometimes get worse when the teachers interfere. This can be a sign of several things:

• That the pupils would like to solve their conflicts them selves but are prevented from doing this – or lack competences and tools to do it
• Or that the teachers – in their best intension – want to solve the conflicts for the pupils because conflicts interrupt the teaching – conflicts take time

At other times, the conflicts are addressed by the whole class and everyone is involved – and the pupils express that they are tired of talking about these matters.

The school needs several ways of solving conflicts
 
For each school, what matters is to get everything working. Therefore, a culture with conflict resolution is not only about solving conflicts in a specific and morally correct way.

It is also about convincing pupils, staff and parents that a school needs different ways of solving conflicts, abuses, violation of rules etc. If dialogue does not help, there might be other methods, for instance sanctions. Or sanctions can be supplemented by mediation.

Constructive conflict resolution and mediation is not about who is right/wrong – but about being seen, heard, listened to, understood and being part of finding reasonable solutions.

Mediation is not a question of “either-or” and thereby excluding traditional methods. Mediation is a question of “both-and”. Dialog can clear the road for better understanding if the will is there. Hereby, it can restore for instance friendships and a school class’ way of interacting.

The purpose of several ways of conflict solving is not to eliminate the conflicts but to have more tools to handle them in the best way.

Models for culture with conflict resolution

In the material for guidance and inspiration targeted at the primary school, DCUM suggests some models for developing a culture with conflict resolution:

• Constructive conflict resolution as a school activity
• School mediation with adults as mediators
• Peer mediation
• Several schools join efforts or institutions across a municipality/local environment collaborate.

The models imply that the management takes the decisive step and decides what should happen. Then the models are built on reaching the pupils via the adults at the school. This involves:

• Development of competences among the staff.
• Organisation in the shape of resource persons – as smooth as possible
• Educational course – courses for the pupils
• Setting up a team of peer mediators – organisation and coaching of the team.
• Peer mediators have several functions: help the younger pupils in the breaks – peer education/peer coaching
• Branding: Currently making people aware of mediation offers at the school – to pupils, staff and parents
• Time and procedures for follow-up and further development of school mediation
• When several schools/institutions join forces it is important to educate adult mediators who can function across schools and across youth environments
• Connection with other initiatives at the school and/or the local area, e.g. other cross initiatives, resource persons, team, activities etc.

What’s up?
The Danish Ministry of Social Affairs in collaboration with the Danish Crime Prevention Council have carried out a project of conflict mediation among 12 – 15 year old young people involved in activities, which are on the borderline of being criminal. The conflicts have been about violence, threats of violence and disagreements between different parties. The conflicts have been unpleasant and at damage for the involved parties, especially if the conflicts remained unsolved or escalated further. The conflicts have mirrored the young people’s everyday life at school, in the street and at home.
 
During the project period, 8 municipalities have organised the offer of mediation differently. A total of 110 mediation courses have been registered. In addition to this come the approx. 300 “emergency mediations”. Most of the mediations have had a positive result. ”Mediation is regarded as a tool for keeping the young people away from destructive behaviour and at the same time strengthen their feeling of being able to influence their own life.” Says the summary of the results.

The project shows that it is an advantage to organise conflict mediation across the young people’s environments and that it can be part of preventing violence and crime and furthermore strengthen the young people’s experience of being able to influence their own life. The project demands a solid education of mediators, forum for collection of experiences, and coaching of mediators, a smooth organisation, management back-up and collaboration across institutions, a smooth visitation, a strategy for providing the offer and a will to try dialog through mediation.

Lotte Christy, who was Project Leader, can tell you more about the project. See more at www.hvahardugangi.dk 

Effects of a school culture with conflict resolution
When working with solving conflicts more constructively – get behind the conflicts – you also have to work with some more general competences and social skills, which are a condition of constructive conflict resolution:

• To listen
• To be aware of one self and others
• To feel own opinions, experiences, feelings and needs
• To understand that the reality looks different
• To communicate with respect and recognition
• To handle resistance and other attitudes
• To collaborate
• To see opportunities in stead of limitations
• That it is human to make mistake
• That is does matter how we talk to each other and 
• That conflicts can be part of providing more clearness if the conflicts are used to seek solutions for everyone.

Consequently, it provides development of competences within the social and personal area – among pupils and among the staff.

Therefore, the conflicts should be used as opportunities of development within the educational environment – with the purpose of getting a safer educational environment knowing that conflicts will be handled professionally, attentively and in close contact/dialog with the involved persons.

Hereby the constructive conflict resolution and mediation become a way of fulfilling the intentions in the law about educational environment and in the basic values of the primary school – to develop the whole persons who can collaborate, navigate in different situations, communicate in a non-violent way and solve conflicts in a democratic and suitable way. Finally, school mdiation is about equality and respect – also for the pupils.

Evaluation and documentation throgh the educational environment

DCUM makes different tools available for the work with the educational environment. These tools can also be used for documentation and evaluation of school mediation – at least the school mediation in relation to the educational environment.

The tools are:

• The thermometer
• The anti-bullying strategy
• Local well-being declaration
• The school liste
• Knowledge, inspiration and specifically usable material at www.brugkonflikten.dk 

The Thermometer is:
The thermometer is flexible, electronic questionnaire for mapping the physical, psychical and aestetic educational environment of schools and educational institutions.
The target group of the thermometer is all pupils and students at the country’s schools and educational institutions. With the thermometer it is possible to make a focused mapping of the extent of bullying and conflicts within a class, a year group or the whole school. Such an evaluation of bullying can either stand alone or be connected to a mapping of other factors of the educational environment as part of the mandatory evaluations of the educational environment. The tool can be used free of charge.

The Anti-bullying Strategy is:
A model which can help the school when it is working out a strategy for well-being and against bullying. The intention of the model is to ensure quality, continuity and systematism in the work for well-being by providing attention on specific questions and demands. For instance, it must be described what is meant by conflicts, well-being and bullying, which preventive, interfering and re-establishing measures the school is taking, how the involvement of pupils and parents should be ensured in the work and how the effort should be followed-up.

Local Well-being Declaration is:
A document which can be filled in and saved on the website. The document shows that a school is working for well-being and against bullying in collaboration with pupils, staff and parents, and that it has worked out an anti-bullying strategy.

The School List is:
DCUM’s eletronic report systemt for all the country’s schools and educational institutions. The system is based on the institutions’ voluntary reporting of evaluations of the educational environment and anti-bullying strategies. 

The school list is offered to all with interest in a total overview of schools/educational institutions within a given municipality that has joined the system and confirmed that they have carried out the compulsory evaluation of the educational environment and/or an anti-bullying strategy.

If a school has reported an evaluation of the educational environment and an anti-bullying strategy and fulfils the criteria hereof, it can download interactive icons to their website.

brugkonflikten.dk is:
A website providing knowledge and inspiration of constructive conflict resolution and school mediation to pupils and adults at the school. For instance, you can find ideas and inspiration of getting started with the implementation of peer mediation, you can find specific educational material and educational courses, evaluation tables, examples of organisation, guidance to the management and to the pedagogic staff, links to schools among others, who are working specifically with the subject, get good stories, send a post card, see the film, hear a rap song about mediation, and order material from the site. If you can read Danish, you might benefit from visiting the website.

Closure
There are scattered initiatives throughout Denmark – at the single schools. However, we do also see initiatives at municipal level – in fact several municipalities are joining soon: Copenhagen, Svendborg, Ålborg and Odense are just a few of the municipalities that have started implementing conflict management and school mediation. The spreading is happening quietly as rings in the water.

School mediation does not have the same status as demands of documentation, test and evaluation have now a days, but via the good experiences and stories school mediation will spread and anchor itself  - as there is always a need for working with social and personal issues within human relations.

What can boost school mediation in Denmark?

• Documentation and research of school mediation – what works, what does not work?
• Interest and will at political level
• Supplementary education of staff
• Conflict resolution and mediation as part of the basic education of the pedagogic staff
• A stronger organisation among mediators in Denmark – like SSP and AKT
• That the peer mediators are organised in a network – exchange of experiences, motivation and continuous focus and development
• That the schools connect school mediation with other initiatives within the social area – and use their role in a local network of institutions and leisure-time offers
• That parents recognise the usefulness
• That mediation has a positive affect in other connections, for instance within conflict councils, legal mediation and open conflict counselling – so that more people experience the value of mediation in relation to themselves and their own story
• The good initiatives and reports from other countries, collaboration with other countries – this contributes to the influence on a national level in Denmark
• Spreading to other educational areas.

Quotations from Peer Mediators at Hjortespring Skole

”It feels great to help other people, watch them be happy again. I have met lots of new friends.”
Boy, 6th grade

”Good to handle the problems of the younger pupils. To be part of making the younger pupils feel well so that they do not get lonely.” Boy, 7th grade

”Good to help other people. To be part of obtaining peace at the school.” Girl, 6th grade
 
”I have learned a lot myself. We have also become better at solving it in the breaks.” Boy, 6th grade

”I can definitely use it when I get older.” Boy, 6th grade
 
”I would like you to give us more responsibility when we mediate.” Boy, 6th grade
 
”Why not mediate in the breaks as well?” Girl, 7th grade