This course will prepare teachers and educational support personnel to better manage conflicts in the school environment, with a focus on student interactions. You will learn what causes conflict, effective ways to respond to conflict, how to manage conflicts with your coworkers, and how to de-escalate angry parents and students. Finally, you will learn about restorative practices and how they improve relationships in the educational setting. The purpose of the course is to improve relationships, increase job satisfaction, reduce negative interactions, and equip school personnel with skills to resolve conflicts in ways that are mutually beneficial.
Students will:
- Develop an understanding of personal conflicts.
- Develop an understanding of how diversity affects conflict.
- Explore typical responses to conflict.
- Develop an understanding of your style of conflict resolution.
- Recognize the challenges to developing trust among education professionals in the school.
- Identify effective ways to respond to conflicts between principals, teachers, and support personnel.
- Observe ways to de-escalate an angry student.
- Prepare a positive discipline plan to deal with angry or disruptive students.
- Identify ways to deal with an angry or upset parent.
- Identify restorative practices that can be used in a school environment.
Course Outline:
Lesson 1: Understanding the Nature of Conflict
In Lesson 1, you will develop an understanding of why and how conflicts occur based on human nature, needs, wants, and emotions. You will identify some of the most common causes of conflict, and how people usually deal with it. By understanding the nature of conflict, you can begin to recognize and prepare for potential conflicts in the school environment.
Lesson 2: Responding to Conflict
In Lesson 2, you will learn the typical ways that people respond to conflict, both good and bad. You will then explore more effective and positive ways to handle conflicts that often occur in a typical workplace.
Lesson 3: Managing Conflicts Among Educators
In Lesson 3, you will explore conflicts among educators. The school setting can be a challenging place with interactions occurring constantly throughout the day. Many of these interactions happen quickly and require you to think on your feet. This lesson will help you to become more proactive with the day-to-day conflicts that are sure to occur among teachers and other school personnel.
Lesson 4: Managing Conflicts with Students
In Lesson 4, you will learn ways to respond to typical student conflicts that can occur anywhere in the school, and especially in the classroom. You will observe ways to de-escalate an angry student to prevent a simple problem from becoming a punitive or violent one. As part of this lesson, you will develop a plan to create non-confrontational interactions with students.
Lesson 5: Managing Conflicts with Parents
In Lesson 5, you will observe ways in which parents approach school personnel when they are upset or angry, and explore effective ways to handle these types of situations. The outcome of many parent conflicts can be determined by how you handle them from the start. This requires mental preparation and awareness, both of which will be studied in this lesson.
Lesson 6: Restorative Practices in Schools
In Lesson 6, you will explore ways to integrate restorative practices that can improve the climate and culture of your school . Creating this culture requires cooperation between educators, students, parents, and members of the community. You will observe schools that use restorative practices and the positive impact of those practices in their schools.
