Waging peace in our schools

Linda Lantieri, Resolving Conflict Creatively Program National Center (New York City); and Janet Patti, Hunter College* Drawing upon recent research and the authors' extensive field experience, this article describes a program which recognizes that the ability to manage emotions, resolve conflict, and interrupt biases are fundamental skills that can and must be taught. It further asserts that schools can play a critical role in stemming youth violence; however, a new vision of education is needed if the nation is to create safe, caring communities of learning for children. Toward these ends, a plan is offered for the successful implementation of the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP), a comprehensive, nationally disseminated and evaluated school-based model. In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., asked our nation a prescient, urgent, and timely question: Where do we go from here-chaos or community? Since Dr. King's death, over one million Americans have been killed violently here at home, including tens of thousands of children .Behind these shameful numbers are small individual faces and individuals' feelings. We must stop this suffering....We must all work together to see that the violence against our children is stopped, that our schools can be turned back into places of nurturing and learning rather than the war zones which some of them have become.... We are not going to be able to deal with the violence in. . .our nation until we learn to deal with the basic ethic of how we resolve disputes and to place an emphasis on peace in the way we relate to one another. (Marian Wright Edelman, quoted in Lantieri & Patti, 1996, pp. ix-x) INTRODUCTION Public schools have long performed a socializing function in the United States. They are presently among the few places where young people of diverse backgrounds can be found in large numbers on a daily basis. By bringing these youth together, public schools give them a chance to develop critical life skills-that is, if the schools are organized correctly. When they are, they become sites where children can nurture their thinking abilities, practice handling their emotions, learn how to deal with conflicts, and gain exposure to societal values. To achieve these objectives, the mission of our nation's schools must be expanded to include the critical skills children need in order for their lives to be safer, happier, and healthier. Subsequently, the criteria that identify a well-educated person in the United States must be expanded as well to include an education of the heart. The goal of this new vision of education is to improve the social and emotional competence of children by teaching the above-noted life skills and understandings as part of their regular education. Such ideas and practices are to be implemented broadly and consistently, not only when youths arrive in the principal's office or are labeled as troubled, or when emotional outbursts, physical fights, or racial conflicts occur. This education is further intended to foster social and emotional learning from a multicultural perspective, through which schools help young people become caring citizens who are committed to the enduring success of the democratic process within a nonviolent pluralistic community. This article offers a look at what this new kind of schooling can and could be like. It draws upon a number of our sources: recent research and theory, real examples, and more than five decades of experience as educators working with children and adults. Our shared background is in one particular school-based program that combines the teaching of social and emotional skills with training in conflict resolution and diversity issues. The Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP), began as an initiative of the New York City branch of Educators for Social Responsibility (ESR Metro) and the city's board of education. Today the RCCP National Center, an effort of the national office of ESR, is making social responsibility an integral part of education by fostering new ways of teaching and learning. …